National Book Lovers Day: Best Marketing Books

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Today is National Book Lovers Day, and there are so many books that are relevant in the digital space, especially with the constant changes. It is important to stay up to date with all that is happening in the industry, which is why you should grab one of these books for your next beach trip:

Building a Story Brand: All you need to know about this book can be summed up in one line, “Your customer should be the hero of the story, not the brand.”

This Is Marketing: This book highlights the new strategies in marketing and why the traditional approaches won’t work today. It dives into every relevant topic: the importance of audience trust,  how to use marketing to solve problems, and why you need to be proud of your work.

UnMarketing: Stop Marketing, Start Engaging: This book identifies that the key to successful marketing today is audience engagement. The sales pipeline has changed and it now starts with recognizing your audience’s wants and needs, responding to them, cultivating a trusting relationship, and that will lead to a purchase or brand loyalty.

Ogilvy on Advertising: David Ogilvy is one of the most influential advertisers and has made a lasting impact on the industry. Ogilvy on Advertising is a thoughtful collection of his thoughts, mindsets, and vision for the industry.

Crushing It: Author Gary Vaynerchuk is another influential figure and his book examines the necessity in developing a brand image.

The Importance of Optimizing Your Google My Business Listing

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It’s a fact that your customers research reviews before making a purchase or selecting a company, restaurant, store, or any other establishment.  This means your business’s online presence and reputation are crucial. An easy and popular way for for businesses to monitor their online presence is through Google My Business, a place for customers to review your businesses and you to interact with them. It is also an essential key to your business’s digital presence. Here are the steps to make sure your Google My Business is optimized:

Step 1. Verify Your Listing

Before you get to the fun stuff, you have to verify your listing. If you haven’t done so, simply log into your Google My Business using a Gmail email and then enter your business’s information. There will be steps to verify it to make sure you are the real owner.

Step 2. Add Pictures

Google My Business listings that have pictures will have a better click-through-rate. Make sure you include your logo, a cover photo, an exterior location picture, and show your services. You can also include a video!

Step 3. Promote Your Content Through Google Posts

With Google posts, you can promote services, blogs, events and more to your audience when they search your business on Google or Google Maps. Just remember, Google Posts expires after a week, unless it is an event, which lasts until the event is over.

Step 4. Respond to Reviews

Responding to reviews, especially the not so positive ones, will give you an opportunity to defend your business, but make sure you take a breath before responding and aren’t hostile as that will only hurt your business. Instead, thank the person for their perspective or bringing the situation to your attention. Do not argue with the person, but instead give them the opportunity to call you or email you so the resolution can be offline.

5 Signs Your Website Needs an Update

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Is your website visit rate low? Is your design outdated? Do you have a high bounce rate? If so, it’s time to revamp your website!

Here are a few signs that indicate if you need to do a website overhaul:

Slow Site Speed

If your site loads too slowly on a user’s phone or computer, this leads to a poor user experience and a greater chance of users leaving your site. Google states a load time should be 3 seconds or less to maintain user interest.

High Bounce Rate

A bounce is when a website visitor comes to your website and leaves without visiting other pages or interacting with your site. Google Analytics can give insight into your bounce rate.

Unorganized Site Without a User Journey

Users need a clear site journey and organizational structure to find what they were looking for when they first discovered your site. If there isn’t a clear structure, users might lose interest and bounce off your site. This will lead to missed opportunities.

Too Much Text & Not a Clean Design

Too much text, especially on your home page, can be overwhelming for the visitor and lead to a higher bounce rate. Additionally, it makes your site look cluttered, hard to navigate, and people will not read all that you have to say. Instead, break the text up with white space, images, sections, and amongst different pages to easily tell your brand’s story.

Not Mobile-Friendly

A friendly user experience extends to mobile viewing, and if your site isn’t mobile-friendly, pictures and text may not load properly and lead to a poor user experience. Make sure your website looks as good on mobile as it does on desktop, especially since mobile viewership has surpassed web.

Social Media Mastery

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Social media is among the most powerful tools in your business’s marketing arsenal, and certainly something you have to utilize in today’s digital landscape. Which platforms are more useful for your business, however, depends on industry and investment.

Why? Because each platform requires a strategy honed for a specific audience, which most likely, won’t be the same for all platforms, and trends and strategy changes frequently. Sure, it may look easy and common sensical, but there is a carefully-planned strategy behind every post.

Using social media for marketing is nothing new- social media platforms have morphed over the years to become a great way to reach out for new audiences and customers, display your company’s culture, garner additional sales, and now even sell directly to customers. With the addition of ads and e-commerce, social media is as powerful as ever.

Social media is a strong way of raising brand awareness and bringing more people to the company, and that is crucial for success. But, you also need to make sure you think about being sensible about the information your company shares and the image produced via social media. Today, a single post can go viral, and not always for a positive feature.

It is clear that any modern business is going to need a strong social media presence in order to help the business thrive and promote the name of the brand. Contact us to guide your social media strategy.

4 Emerging Trends

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As 2019 unfolds, here are a few emerging digital trends to keep in mind:

Conversational Social

Social media posts are two-way now. Instead of just posting, brand should try to engage consumers in a conversation and gauge their wants and interests. The key here is having a quick response time.

Geo-targeted Ads

This might seem like old news, but for Starbucks app users, you’ve already started experiencing this new type of geo-targeted ads of walking into a targeted location or area and then having an ad populate.

More Personal

Emails are going to get even more personal. They are going to focus on what the user is interested in, has engaged with, and more creative, impactful content will be treated as a result.

New Opportunities

As always, with each there will be new technologies, new trends, and new ideas. A strong brand is flexible and ready to jump on emerging trends.

Holiday Social Best Practices

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The holidays are a time for celebration, but they are also a time for businesses to make their bottom line through final sales. With the inundation of sales through social media and e-mail, it is important to make your content stand out from the crowd. Here are a few strategies to ensure your content on social media catches the eye of buyers and converts:

  1. Start your sale promotion early enough to be able to guarantee holiday deliver.
  2. Promote the sale through all social channels, including your story, and be sure to highlight specific products and remind about the delivery deadlines.
  3. Write a blog with the best gifts for different kinds of people or hobbies to identify target audiences. Then promote the blog on all social channels.
  4. Don’t post a sale on the holidays, instead, do a holiday message with your materials and begin promoting sales the day after.

 

Holiday Email Strategy

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During the holidays, every retail store is flooding people’s inboxes with emails, therefore, it is important to make sure your email does not get lost is the masses. We have a few strategies to help ensure your email, and more importantly, information is distributed to your clients.

  1. Have a creative, compelling subject line: Subjects that ask a question, advertise a sale, or have an upcoming end-date tend to be opened more readily because they pull the individual in and pique their interest.
  2. Link to content on your website: The purpose of any email is to get people to your website so make sure links are on every picture, product or word where appropriate.
  3. Promote your emails on social media: Ask people to sign up for your emails on social media and offer a short-term discount for doing so.
  4. Have picture-heavy content: We live in a visual world, so don’t have text heavy emails. Instead, let pictures and graphics do the talking.

Facebook v. Google Ads

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If you’re trying to grow your business, increase sales, or promote brand awareness, you’re probably looking into ads on one of these platforms, but which is better? The answer is complicated, though, considering what you’re looking for and what your end goal is. Obviously if you’re looking to grow your social presence, promote an event, or ____ Facebook might be the better platform. However, people generally don’t go looking for plumbers or service providers on Facebook, so unless this is a retargeting effort, these ads are better on Google.

Google also offers video ads on YouTube, shopping ads on Google Shopping, and retargeting ads that can follow interested individuals around the internet. Google also has a very large audience considering it is the most popular search engine.

Facebook is great for bloggers, the entertainment industry, cosmetic or  fashion brands, and the event industry to target very specific individuals. On Facebook, ads can be targeted by employer, job, items they have liked, and traditional demographics. This can help narrow the audience better than Google.

In the end, split testing between the two platforms could be a great way to determine which platform fits your brand best as both provide great offerings.

First Steps of New Business Marketing

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Have you finally opened your dream company? The life of an entrepreneur is hectic at first, but there are a few marketing tasks you should not put off.

  • Research your competitors. Know the landscape of your product line.
  • Identify your audience. This will guide all future marketing decisions if you know who you are targeting.
  • Narrow down your company’s branding and identity goals. This is the aesthetic side of business, but branding is important as it differentiates you from your competitors.
  • Claim your URL and build your website. In this digital age, a website is a very necessary early step.
  • Claim all social handles, even if you don’t activate the accounts initially. Your future self will thank you.
  • Familiarize yourself with SEO best practices, or hire an agency to do this for you. Once you have a web presence, this will be crucial in putting your new business in front of potential clients.

Blog Post Conceptualization

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Sometimes coming up with your blog topic can be the hardest part of your blog. Depending on how frequently you post, ideas can be scarce. It’s hard to find inspiration, but there are a few key places to find inspiration. During this month’s blog post, we detail those places and what to look for:

  • News: Google your subject and see what the latest news is and what industry leaders are talking about. Once you do your own research, put your own spin or opinion on the subject.
  • Current Events: What’s going on in the world? Does your topic relate to it? This could even be as simple as a holiday, movement, season, etc.
  • Pinterest: Pinterest is still a great tool for finding inspiration, especially for those in creative fields. Find out what the latest trends are, or merely use it as a visual inspiration.
  • Competitors: It’s a great idea to always have an eye on your competitors. Though it’s never a good idea to replicate what they’re doing, it my inspire an idea of your own.
  • Instagram: Follow people in your industry, search hashtags, look up locations, and keep your eyes open for anything that you find inspiring. Like Pinterest, this is a great place for visual ideas.