by DG | May 9, 2022 | Content Marketing, Lead Generation, Digital Marketing, Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media
Have you ever been wondering how businesses get so much attention every single day? You see them out there marketing their businesses, and all of a sudden, you start seeing their ad after ad on social media, at work, and everywhere else. So how do they get so many eyeballs on their marketing every day?
The answer is simple — they know how to develop a marketing strategy that will get them noticed. In this article, you are going to learn how to develop a marketing strategy that will get your business noticed.
Whether you are a business owner, an entrepreneur, or just getting started and looking to get your foot into the door of business, this information is for you. It’s important that your company has a marketing strategy in place, no matter what size of business currently is.
The reason for this is because a marketing strategy will help you convert your prospects into customers, and potential customers into long-term customers. In other words, a marketing strategy will help you get your business out to the people who will be most interested in it.
Let’s look at what’s involved in developing an effective marketing strategy.
An Effective Marketing Strategy is Important for any Business
A marketing strategy is essential for any business when it comes to getting their business out there. The problem with this is that many people think they can get by without one. They might believe that they have a great product, service, or idea and all they need to do is advertise it publicly and people will find them.
Well, the truth is that’s not true at all. When someone thinks in this way, they are setting themselves up for failure because there are millions of other businesses doing the same thing, which means no one will notice them.
Define Your Audience
When developing a marketing strategy, it is imperative that you first define your audience. Your marketing strategy should be tailored to them and their needs. If you are an author, for instance, your target audience may be people who enjoy reading.
This means that when creating your marketing campaign, you will want to use images of books and quotes from famous authors in order to attract these specific people. If your business is a construction company and the audience is made up of professionals in the construction industry, then you will want to place images of construction sites and building materials on your site in order to draw attention to those interested in this field.
The point here is that the more specific you are with your defined audience, the better chance you have of getting their attention.
Develop A Solid Content Marketing Strategy
An important first step for long-term growth is to develop a content marketing strategy. In order to get your business noticed, you are going to have to create a lot of content that people will want to read and share. The best way to do this is by finding content that is relevant to the people in your target demographic and then providing even more valuable information on top of it.
For example, if your business sells healthy kale chips, you could provide healthy recipes for dips other food items that are complementary to yours. By taking the time and effort to put out valuable information, you will be able to draw in readers who are interested in what you have to say.
Always Be Updating
One great way to get people looking at your marketing is by updating it. This will show prospects that you are confident in what you have to offer, and that you are constantly trying new ways to keep them interested.
For example, you might update your social media posts every day with new information about your products or services. Or, you may post a video of a new experience that is coming soon on your website. Whatever the case may be, updating your content often will get people talking about it.
Always Be Consistent
One of the biggest mistakes that a lot of businesses make with their marketing is that they are not consistent. You need to be consistent in your marketing if you want it to be effective. You need to put out content on a regular basis, whether it be once or twice per day.
You also need to use social media daily and have ads running on Facebook and other sites on a regular basis as well. The more you do this, the better chance you have of building a following and gaining trust among your target audience. One of the best ways to stay consistent is by using an editorial calendar.
An editorial calendar can help you plan ahead and know what you’re going to post when without having to think about it.
Always Be Testing
The first thing that you need to think about in your marketing strategy is how you are going to test what works and what doesn’t. In other words, you want to try different strategies to see which ones work better than others.
For instance, if you are advertising on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, then you will want to test out different ads with different types of images and copy.
If you are doing PPC advertising then this should be pretty easy for you because you can get results very quickly. Testing both Social advertising and PPC ads is great way for you to figure out what strategy will work best for your company.
By running A/B tests and tracking the metrics like views and conversions you’ll be able to determine what method will give you the best ROI. Then you can optimize your campaigns over time so that they produce the the best ongoing results possible.
You want to always be testing so that you can find the right formula that works best for your business — there is no one size fits all approach when it comes to marketing strategies!
Always Be Watching For Trends
One of the first things that you can do to develop a marketing strategy that will get you noticed is to always be watching for trends. You never know when something might explode, and if you are not paying attention when it does, then you could end up missing out on a lot of potential customers who would have been very interested in your business.
For example, one way that people use social media is by following hashtags. When you post to Instagram use hashtags relevant to your business. If you sell custom furniture you might use hashtags like #customfurniture, #customcoffeetable, and #customchairs etc. If someone who follows these trends happens to come across your business and they see that your company offers custom chairs or custom coffee tables, they may end up contacting you and becoming a customer because they did not know that these products were available before and they live close enough to pick them up.
Look For Opportunities
Always look for opportunities to get noticed. For example, if you are the owner of a clothing boutique, the opportunity to get noticed could be as simple as placing your promotions in a high-traffic area whether it’s online or offline. This will ensure that people have an easier time finding your store.
You also need to think about other ways to get noticed, such as creating pop-up shops or even sponsorship deals for events in your area. Look at that activities of other businesses related to yours and see if there are ways to work together to benefit each other. There are plenty of opportunities for you to get noticed, but it all starts with looking for them.
Conclusion
So you’ve got your business plan complete and now you are ready to develop a marketing strategy that will get you noticed. You may be wondering where to start and all the steps that need to be followed in order to create a successful marketing strategy. The 8 tips outlined above will help you develop a strategy that will get you noticed and establish your business as the go-to in your industry.
by DG | Aug 25, 2020 | Social Media, Digital Marketing, Online Marketing
In recent years, we have seen great advancements in data connectivity and a rise in mobile users. Due to this, social media has risen up as a new platform for marketing. While the conventional platforms have not yet become obsolete and still play an important role for some businesses, social media not only provides you with an opportunity to target a wider set of audience but also enable you to interact with them at a more personal level.
So, before you start your social media marketing campaign, it is very important for you to have a well-thought-out strategy ready to be executed. This will not only help you to identify the hurdles in social media marketing but you will also be able to use the right tactics to tackle these hurdles and reach your goal in the time.
Keep A Business Objective in Mind:
Social media has its own perks and by using it effectively, you can achieve many things. It has made a lot of things easy such as performing customer service, engaging with customers, increasing web traffic, expanding the audience, getting valuable feedbacks and much more.
But to achieve all these you need to have a goal in mind that you can work towards. Now to achieve your objective, you need a strategy and you need to very careful while making it. Don’t let social media make your objective, instead make your own business objectives and let the social media drive those them.
Optimize Your Content
You probably have read many blogs in which they mention that your content must be high quality, original, relevant and appealing to your audience. But how does one create a content like that? If you want to position your brand at a very high position in your industry, then you should take a look into what the successful brand are already doing.
Follow 60/30/10 Rule
This rule means that you should create and post 60 percent of the content that is relevant to your product. Share 30 percent of content that is relevant to the local community or a non-competitive local business and share 10 percent of the content regarding sales and promotions of your services. This will help to create high quality content and still maintain the consistency.
Your Content Must Be Shareable
Better than original, high quality and relevant, you must put focus on content that is shareable. If you are confused what is content is most shareable, take a look at your competitor’s activity and note what content gets the most likes, comments and shares. Now go back to your project and start creating posts and curating content that has similar elements but better. Sharable content can include…
- How to Posts
- Positive Content
- Trending Topics
- Social Causes
Be Present
This is the easiest way to talk directly to your customers and you can do that without spending any money. Be sure to like, comment, share and answer content relevant to your niche as well as on monitoring and engaging. It can be challenging to optimize the time you’ll spend on this activity so keep in this in mind.
Good news is that you don’t need to monitor all the social media channels all the time. A good way to start deciding where to be present is to look where your competitors are. For instance, if they are posting more on Instagram then maybe you should start paying attention to that platform too.
Share compelling visuals whenever you can
People now days, specially millennials are always in a rush, so you get only a few second to grab their attention. You need make those few seconds count, else they’ll move on to some other post or website. So, always try to include quality visual components in your posts because if your content seems to be below average no one will stop scrolling and see what you have to offer. Posts including image produce 650% more engagement that text-only post and is more like to get shared 40 times more. Again good quantity visuals are important as they tend to increase the people’s willingness to read it by 80%.
Prepare to Spend Money on Social Media Marketing
“There is no free lunch”. Yes, this also applies here. Fact is that organic growth is dying. Platforms like Facebook, Google and Twitter have updated their apps to prize more to paid content and less to non-paid content. This means it’s harder to get space in your customer’s timeline. Now, what would be the point of spending so much time and effort in producing content, if nobody is going to see it.
However, you must understand that you should prepare before you start to pay, otherwise you’ll be just wasting money. Now the question arises that how much should you spend? Well, this all depends on the nature of business and target customers.
When we are talking about Facebook in particular, there are a few approaches. If you are promoting something specifically like a Product Sale or Signing up for a mailing list you should run an ad campaign because there is a lot that you can control. There is much to know about Facebook Advertising strategies which is beyond the scope of this post. In fact we have a Free eBook called “How To Win On Social Media” on this topic. See the signup to the right of this article.
USEFUL TIP – Sometimes you just want to get people to read your blog post. In this case use “Boost” and set it for $1/per day for 7 days. This is very low cost exposure but “what’s the value?” you ask? If you have Facebook Pixel installed on your site you can use Google retargeting ads so those visitors to your blog post will see your ads on other sites. They will become more familiar with your brand and you’ll increase the likelihood of them buying from you.
DOWNLOAD Our Free Social Post Planner (In Google Sheets, click FILE > make copy). It has a daily, monthly and archive view as well as a brainstorming tab.
Get Your Content Shared
Do you best to encourage people to share your content. There are also some great services like quuupromote.co that will spread your blog posts to get shared by influencers for a small fee and this works great. There are similar services but this is one of our favourite and very affordable.
Grow Your Following
- Post frequently – 4x per day if possible
- Optimize your posting time
- Use visual content – Photos – & Videos
- Use hashtags strategically
- Engage with replies
- Create an inviting profile
- Find followers within your network
A special note about Instagram…
How to quickly grow your Instagram Following.
When you post something on Facebook, how many people engage with your post? 5? 10? 20? Instagram is very different. With zero followers you can get a lot of likes.
How you say?
The magic of Hashtags!!!
With Instagram you can post up to 30 hashtags per post! That’s a huge number. Now you just have to be strategic about selecting the right ones.
With a new account you should put up about 12 posts.
You want to find relevant hashtags with 50k-300k images per hashtag. After you get over 10k followers, you can use more popular hashtags, but at the early stage don’t go after hashtags with more than 300k images because you’ll get lost in the feed and get zero engagement.
Your goal is to get featured within the 9 top posts under each hashtag.
Moving forward, you should post 3-4 times per day.
Instagram doesn’t work for every kind of business. It’s a very visual platform. If your business is not very visual, like accounting or insurance then Instagram is probably not worth the time. Think about whether you could come up with 3 or 4 good images per day to help make your decision about trying Instagram. Accounting and insurance came to mind as not being visual. However, I have not looked into that and there may be companies in those categories having success.
Repeat what worked
Don’t get disheartened if something didn’t work just try something else. Don’t give up on the idea of using social media as your marketing tool. And if your social media efforts were successful, just stick to what you have been doing. It is as simple as that. Just if one thing didn’t work for you doesn’t mean that nothing will work. Try again, just stick to the basics, redefine your audience and reconsider about the amount of investment.
Social media is great tool for small business owners as it is unique and it can take a company’s fame to new heights, broaden its reach and can create a wide range of customers. But all this is going to work only if you are determined to do it.
If you need help with your Social Media Strategy, our design agency offers a full range of Social Media and other digital marketing services. Just click here to book a Free Consultation.
by DG | Jan 3, 2019 | Content Marketing, Business, Digital Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media
When you’re creating an online business, you hear, over and over, that you need to be a master of content marketing to build your online brand. But how do you create the content marketing strategy that works? How do you turn your business into a lean, mean, content creation machine?
Define Your Purpose
So you’ve decided to start a website/blog. What are you going to talk about? Are you going to relay and interpret industry news? Talk about your products? Talk about the customers who are satisfied with your services?
Educate your customers on how your products can make a difference in their lives? All of these topic areas can make great content blogs, and the best ones combine many of these elements to blend into a multidimensional whole.
To make sure that your business isn’t just recreating the content of your competition, it’s worth surveying the other blogs in your niche that exist. Find out what space others are occupying so that you can make a space for yourself.
Do Your Research
Beyond finding out what your competition is doing, also do research on keywords, popular searches, and common questions in your industry. After all, if your blog is going to become a destination, you need to create a roadmap for your audience.
Answering their questions, catching their interest, and advertising yourself through social media and search engine results is the first step toward making yourself visible to them.
Make a list of topic keywords that can be headlines as well as phrases that you can use periodically throughout your content posts to attract attention from search engines. Use the brainstorming tab in our Free Content Marketing Planner.
If you need help coming up with ideas for your posts, checkout Neil Patel’s great post called How to Come Up with 93 Blog Ideas in 10 Minutes.
Create an Editorial Calendar
One of the most frustrating things to see as a consumer of content is that businesses and bloggers often fail to pace themselves with blog creation. They post several topics all at once in the first few days, and then forget to post for days and weeks on end.
This doesn’t work for multiple reasons. First, to keep your readers coming back, you need to be continuously creating new and useful content. Regular refreshment tells your site visitors that your website is up to date, which helps the page to climb the rankings. Second, your customers need reminders to come back and find your fresh content.
The proliferation of social media has pushed the now into our minds; we are less concerned with what happened yesterday, and what to know what’s going on right now. You need fresh links to draw in fresh audiences to share on fresh timelines. To get that, you need to create regular content.
Before you start blogging, decide how often you want to post – once a week is a bare minimum, but more than once a day is usually overkill – and make sure you have a month worth of topics ready to go.
Keep yourself several days ahead with blogs scheduled to post to your site and share themselves to social media at appropriate times. By automating everything, you maximize exposure.
When you’re tired and not sure what to say, have a stable of ideas to go back to; it helps you keep your content flowing.
For in depth knowledge about blogging, Ryan Robinsons website is one of the best resources you will find.
DOWNLOAD Our Free Content Marketing Planner (In Google Sheets, click FILE > make copy). It has a daily, monthly and archive view as well as a brainstorming tab.
Getting Exposure for Your Content using Social Media
Naturally you you want to make sure people see all this great content you have put all this effort into creating it. There are many ways to promote your content. We won’t cover the topic of promotion in depth here but we will talk about social media. It’s a big one.
After each piece of content you create, you should immediately share it on all your chosen Social Media platforms. Most companies use at least Facebook, Twitter and Google My Business.
Others like Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat are chosen depending on the industry you are in as some are more visual than others. For example, Fashion and Beauty type businesses will definitely want to be on Instagram and Pinterest while an accounting firm probably won’t.
If you really want to benefit from Social Media you need to post a lot. Like several times a day. You may be thinking, how are we ever going to produce enough content?
This is where content curation comes in. You don’t need to be the author of everything you share on Social Media. In fact it’s a good idea to share other people’s content as long as it’s relevant and useful to your audience.
Social Sharing
When it comes to social sharing you need to get the balance right, A common strategy is the 5:3:2 rule.
So for every ten posts:
5 should be content from other sources that are relevant to your audience, (curated content). Keep in mind what your reader would be interested in and it will keep them more engaged. There’s a ton of these types of posts that can curated and shared. Sign up with a service like Feedly, choose relevant topics and you will see then in you account every day. Then simply choose the ones you want to share by copying the URL and pasting into the scheduling app of your chosen sharing app (see below) .
3 should be original content such as blog posts or videos, that would be interesting to your audience. It can also be about Product promotions, Product information etc.
2 could be about your staff so your audience gets to know your company which helps build a relationship and builds trust. These post could also be Customer stories or case study in nature.
Also at any time you could announce special offers, trade show events or any other special announcements.
Schedule your social posts with an app.
Your social posts could be planned in a Google Sheet like the one above but in reality we find it more practical to use a web application like Buffer, Later, or Hootsuite. Lately we have been liking Later. These apps save a few steps in the workflow and it’s much easier for everyone to contribute. These all have a free tier entry level.
Accept Feedback from Your Clients
When you create a blog, make sure you have a way for your clients and customers to reach out to you with questions. They might be simple – how do I use this product to accomplish this task – or more complex – what position does your company take on this situation? Some of the best articles are those where a company responds to customer questions and concerns. They show that you’re listening and you respond to your audience, which does more to further your brand than almost anything else can.
This is easy to implement if you have a website built with WordPress. If you need help with WordPress, this is and area of expertise for us. In fact we are recognized as a top WordPress Website Design Company on DesignRush.
When you create content, you’re furthering your company’s brand, building your sales funnel, and developing tools that increase your company’s position and discoverability. Treat your content marketing just like any other aspect of your business; proceed with a plan, create regular deadlines that you can meet, and take it seriously. By doing these things, you’ll make sure that your content drives your business forward and creates a responsible relationship with your customers.
by DG | Sep 20, 2016 | Online Marketing, Social Media, Web Design
Are you using the internet to its fullest capacity when it comes to marketing? The internet is a revolutionary marketing tool that all business owners now have at their disposal. Nothing levels the playing field between competitors quite like internet marketing, because it removes limitations of time and location. Having an online marketing plan in place is no longer an added luxury, but it is a necessity for any business looking to reach its full potential. Not only can you generate brand awareness with the help of online marketing strategies, but you can also increase profits immensely.
Direction of Online Marketing Campaign
When you are first getting started in the world of online marketing, you have to come up with a direction. You need to know what the goal of your marketing campaign is before you can choose the most effective strategy. Knowing if you should focus on a specific product/service or opt for social media marketing methods is all about creating a marketing campaign designed for success. The more online marketing strategies that you implement twill only increase your level of success and online presence. Using both old and new marketing techniques in combination will offer the best results.
Target Audience
No matter what type of online marketing strategies are put in place, not only do you need campaign direction but you also must target your audience. A target audience is the group that is most likely to be interested in your business. Knowing exactly who this demographic is will be the key to having an online marketing campaign that does the trick. You can only prefect your marketing strategies if you know the target audience that you should pander to. Once you have determined the target audience you can begin choosing the best online marketing strategies designed to offer results.
The Google AdWords
There are many online marketing strategies that are cost effective and will give you a lot of marketing potential for a low fee. Google AdWords are a pay-per-click marketing program that actually helps you market your business on almost any budget. The best part of this marketing option is that you have the ability to market using keywords. Keywords are so important, because they are the words that online users type in the search query to deliver results. This means that you can ensure an online ad for your business appears when keywords directly tied to your business are used.
When your ad is seen near the top search results this will help tremendously with increasing brand awareness and giving your business authority. Google AdWord online marketing methods offer real results that help drive traffic to your website.
Web Design Impact
Not only do paid online marketing methods offer results, but good web design will also have a positive impact on your online marketing campaign. Online marketing involves trying to drive traffic to your website and the design of your website is where you should begin. You can create a website that is designed with SEO techniques in mind that help your site gain recognition with search engines. SEO web design techniques will ensure that your website ranks on the first page of results. If your site is not on the first page of Google results you might as well be invisible. However, if you focus on design online marketing strategies, you will have constant traffic at your site.
Engage and Attract
Another online marketing strategy that really works involves taking advantage of new marketing trends. Social media marketing is becoming next-level, because it allows you to engage customers and open direct lines of communication. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are at an all-time high and are showing no signs of slowing down. You can create online marketing campaigns that are focused on social media sites. Signing up for accounts on Facebook and Twitter are free. All you have to do is invest a bit if time and creativity into crafting social media marketing strategies that work the best.
In order to make social media marketing work for your business, you have to post regularly and create interesting tweets that entice potential customers and offering meaningful information. Using photos and videos links on your social media accounts will also help to make a splash.
Start Now
The potential of your online marketing campaign really is limitless if you implement some of these simple strategies. Internet marketing helps you compete with businesses of all sizes and allows you to reach a wider consumer base. Enhancing your brand awareness is as easy as just letting your marketing reach take over. Now you have the ability to reach many more consumers than you ever thought possible if you only learn the best ways to use online marketing strategies to your advantage.
by DG | Aug 26, 2016 | Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Web Design
Small businesses just don’t know how good they have it. Gone are the days of offline marketing that would take weeks to months to see results. Now a small business can start marketing online use a Social Media Marketing campaign and see results as soon as a few days, if they do it right.
Even if you only make a few sales or leads per day, you are reaching customers that you may have never otherwise found. And, it’s still something exemplifying the power of social media marketing when utilized to its fullest potential.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is online marketing with a social media twist. Instead of exclusively relying on online advertisements to push your business, most of the pushing is done via social media.
This form of marketing takes marketing to social media networks, which helps people achieve their goals for marketing, communication and, eventually, branding for their business. Social media marketing involves sharing content, images and videos across social networks. Of course, social sharing is a huge part of using social networks, but the most important aspect of this type of sharing lies in its marketing ability.
Businesses, especially small businesses, need social media marketing for those reasons. If they share content with their followers, their followers will more or less get a taste of what they can offer them as a business. That may lead to potential sales and, in some cases, a customer for life.
Social media marketing isn’t the easiest form of marketing, but it’s pretty simple to start using. I mean, everyone can open their own business-related social media account. But, it takes a smart marketer to use social networks to their full advantage.
Businesses can learn how to effectively integrate social media into their online marketing campaigns themselves but it is time consuming and there will be a lot of trial and error. A better strategy might be to hire a professional online marketing company to kick thing off in the right direction and take over the campaign gradually if it seems more cost-effective. This way you can also be sure that things are set up properly so that you can measure the results of your efforts.
Social media marketing trends for small businesses
2013 was when social media marketing made some sort of a shift. Many people weren’t seeing results from the practice, mainly because they didn’t understand how to effectively utilize social media marketing in the first place. It’s that reason why today’s social media marketing trends are heading in a direction benefiting businesses who finally want to use social media marketing to their advantage.
There are many great web based tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, Spokal and others that connect all these elements and make the process much easier. Our new favorite tool is Spokal. If you are using WordPress, and why wouldn’t you, it’s got some great integrated tools that are really done well.
I won’t go into great detail here but one of the features I like best is the calendar for scheduling tweets – it’s brilliant. I highly recommend trying it out.
Most demographics use social media in some way. That’s why businesses who use social media marketing need to reach their audiences via the platform ‘in some way,’ as they say.
So, how can small businesses best utilize social media marketing? Well, it’s simple. In order to fully take advantage of social media marketing, small business owners should study social media marketing trends.
In this article, we’re going to take a brief look at many social media marketing trends that small businesses can use throughout the rest of the year.
Invest in social media now
Social media has plenty of benefits. Thanks to those benefits, it’s important for small businesses to hop on the social media bandwagon now, and before it’s too late to reach their target market.
Social media helps small businesses reach their goals. When you use social media as a marketing tool, it has the potential to impact your referral traffic, lead generation, website traffic and, eventually, overall revenue. There are plenty of reasons behind that, too:
- Social media helps boost social signals.
- Social media helps improve company brand awareness.
- Social media promotes word-of-mouth advertising.
- Social media helps boost customer trust and loyalty.
- Social media helps boost business’ reach and influence over their audience.
These benefits pretty much describe why social media marketing is a necessity for small businesses today. So, start investing now before 2015 arrives.
Images + social media = success?
Including powerful images has proven to be more effective than just using text. While there’s nothing wrong with text only to deliver your message, images ultimately win out for various reasons.
The biggest reason is that images simply grab people’s attention more than text does. When people look at images, they’re immediately drawn in by the content—and may want to act.
Small businesses can take advantage of that just by adding attractive and informative images to their business’ social media marketing campaign. When I mean informative, I mean images that are relevant to the product or service you might sell. People like learning about things as soon as they stumble upon them, so make that image worth their time and attention.
Don’t rule out micro-video
2016’s halfway over, and we’re already seeing results from the rise of micro-video. Popularized by the micro-blogging network, Twitter, micro-video is another social media phenomenon used by many social network users today.
Micro-videos are no longer than 15 seconds, which allows people to convey powerful bits of content in mere seconds. Plenty of micro-videos have reached viral status, since the content’s short and pretty easy to consume.
Businesses can actually take advantage of micro-video as an inexpensive way to promote their products or services. Just remember to make the video memorable. Although it’s easier to be informative and present facts, it’s even better to make the experience worth watching. In other words, be creative with how you convey information to your eager and waiting audience.
Social media marketing is the present for small businesses who want to build an effective marketing campaign. Given the types of trends out there today, it’s important for small business owners to observe them, learn and use what they known to build a successful social media marketing campaign.
