By Warren Knight Whilst content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing, it generates more than three times as many leads. What innovative and useful content marketing tips are you using to generate leads?
Content marketing is defined as “a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.”As someone who generates leads and sales through the content I share, I wanted to give you 21 effective and useful content marketing tips to help YOU do exactly what I have done. This article was inspired by an article I read on Content Marketing Institute. 1. TELL A STORYWhat companies come to mind when you think about a great story? For me, this would be Apple and Facebook. Both companies have had the successes they have had because of the people behind the brand, and how their story has connected with their target audience. The content I write on the Warren Knight website is now geared towards my story, and giving my audience an insight into who I am as the person behind my brand and is one my most effective content marketing tips. I have given insight into my work-life balance, and how to truly love what you do. Both of these articles tell a story, and this story is based on my life experiences. 2. FACT FINDINGFor a lot of the content I share, I include at least two statistics to build trust in my industry. Whilst I did not do the research to actually create the statistic, I do my research to find the companies that do. I have a Google Doc of a list of statistics specific to each social network, and overall topics like content marketing, and digital marketing. Having facts and statistics in your content is a great way to position yourself as a thought leader. One of my best performing articles called “Social Media Demographics” is ALL about different statistics about each social network. I have had tens of thousands of hits to this article because of the statistics I share. 3. MAKE YOUR CONTENT WORTH READINGAccording to NewsCred, a reader will spend an average 36 seconds reading your article. What can you do to make them spend longer on your content, so that they get to know you and your business? Content that is easy to read and considered “skim-able” is a great way to encourage your visitors to spend more time reading your content. Break your article down into sub headers so they can easily find the content they are looking for. 4. ANSWER YOUR AUDIENCE’S QUESTIONSHow often do you do your research to find what you audience are typing into Google that relates to your business? Do your research, and FIND what their questions are, and make sure you answer them in the content you share. I know that content marketing is a subject my audience love reading about, and learning from which is why I have written this article on content marketing tips. I have understood that content marketing tips is a key search from my audience inside of Google, so this article will give them exactly what they are looking for which ultimately increases trust. 5. REAL-TIME ACTIONABLE CONTENTThis is something I do on a regular basis. When I have a webinar running, I will always write content that allows me to talk about the webinar at the end of the blog. Offering your customers a real-time chance to sign up to a dated piece of online content like a webinar or podcast builds a great connection, and allows your audience to get to know your business whilst also building a community. 6. USE MORE THAN ONE FORM OF CONTENT MARKETINGIt has been reported that marketers use approximately 13 different content marketing tactics online. Content marketing is much more effective when you are using different forms of content e.g. images, videos, written content. You will also see an increase in effectiveness if you are using various channels to distribute this content. I always share my written content on LinkedIn Pulse as I know this is a great way to get people over to my website, and to engage in a two-way conversation. Vary the content you share, and WHERE you share it to get the best ROE. 7. BUILD A COMMUNITY “HUB” Inside of Facebook I have a private members group of hundreds of businesses who have worked with me over the last two years. Inside this community myself and my team engage on a daily basis sharing content, running polls and answering questions. The content I share always offers a call-to-action whether it be answering a poll, or reading/watching a piece of content and you should do the same. Recommended for YouWebcast, March 2nd: The Psychology of Designing User Habits with Nir Eyal 8. UPLOAD VISUAL CONTENT TO SLIDESHAREI have been using Slideshare for years, and use this tool to upload all of my presentations, and webinar slides. I get thousands of views on my slideshare content, and whilst it isn’t as engaging as other tools I use, it does give me a great presence online, and allows me to give those who attend a seminar or webinar of mine a place to see the presentation I delivered, and to continue to learn from it. 9. RECYCLE YOUR CONTENTAs a business owner, understand that creating brand new content everyday of the week is an uphill task and you may not have the resources or team in place to help you do this and that’s OK. Take a look at the content you have already created, and find ways to improve it before sharing it again with your community. This is a great way to save time when creating new content. You should still be creating new content but your audience understands that it’s not easy and showing them that your recycled content has been improved is a great way to continue trust. 10. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCEDo you who your target audience is? To be able to create content that will connect with your audience, you first need to know who they are. Define your target audience by where they live, their behaviours online and their age. Once you know the key pieces of information about your target customer you can build an image that allows you to connect with them the way they want to be connect with. You may find that your audience do not use a specific social network and understanding this will allow you to focus on the social networks they do use, saving you time to focus on engagement, and getting that ROE. 11. LOOK FOR CONTENT IN YOUR EMAILSThis has to be one of the best content marketing tips I can give to you. On a regular basis, I have companies and thought leaders share content with me in an email, which then inspires me to write what I write. Also look for feedback and questions from potential customers to give you your next piece of content. If you are seeing the same questions coming into your inbox, maybe you need to write about it, or create an infographic. 12. EVERGREEN CONTENTEvergreen content is a piece of content that remains relevant regardless of when it was published. I have various free guides on Think Digital First that work as a nice piece of evergreen content as they are “how-to” guides. Think about how you can take your knowledge and turn it into a piece of evergreen content that drives leads without you having to update it every week. 13. PERSONALISATION56% of marketers believe that personalised content encourages a higher engagement rate and I can definitely agree with this statistic. In my article I share my stories, and the way I “action” a lot of my tips and tricks, as well as giving the reader an insight into who I am. Are you doing the same? Personalisation is one of the most effective content marketing tips for businesses online as a way to really connect with their audience on a personal level. 14. OPTIMISE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA23% of the total time users spend online is actually spent inside of a social network. Optimise your content for Social Media, and make sure it is shared across all of your social platforms in the best way for each specific network. What works on Facebook will not work on Instagram and what works on Pinterest will not work on Twitter so understand how each social network works, to give your audience the best way to read/watch your content. 15. EMBEDDING VIDEOSThe latest article I wrote on Think Digital First about Pinterest has a video embedded into it because I am talking about a brand new feature, and a video is the best way to give an overview of the new features. Studies show that blogs with videos get more shares than those that don’t. Whilst it’s impossible to add a video to every piece of content you create, you should consider adding videos to content that is “educational” to give your audience an extra insight into your chosen topic. 16. THINK ABOUT MARKETING BEFORE RELEASING A NEW PRODUCT/SERVICESo many businesses fail because they do not think about how they are actually going to market their business before launching a product. When I am launching a new online course, I will always split my marketing into pre, during and post so that I know where my time and money is being spent, and so I can also measure the success of the new launch. 17. YOUR BLOG URLWhen posting a blog, you need to make sure that the keyword around that piece of content is included in the URL of your blog. This is something that can be done very easily inside of your website platform. Blog URL’s that contain an endless stream of irrelevant numbers will make it harder for your audience to find your content through searching on Google, and this is a great way to generate organic traffic. 18. ACTIVELY READ OTHER PEOPLES CONTENTOne of my favourite content marketing tips is very simple. If you are going to be sharing content online created by other people, you need to be reading it first to make sure it is relevant. This will also inspire you to write new content that your audience will love. 19. CREATE A “WHO TO FOLLOW” LISTRegardless of me being an expert in my field, I will always share content (and content marketing tips) created by other thought leaders in my industry. To make this easy, I have created a Twitter List which I can look at on a daily basis to see what those in the list are sharing content-wise. If you don’t know how to create a Twitter List, here is a great article I wrote about it. If you aren’t already, you should look at Feedly as another tool to use to create a list of great content. Compile a list of websites that share great content about your industry and bring them into Feedly so that you can easily find your next piece of content to share. 20. BE ORIGINALThere are millions of businesses sharing content online every single second. What are you doing to make sure your content stands out from the rest? One of my content marketing tips is to be original, and share content that encourages your customers to believe in the uniqueness of your business. 21. LONG-FORM CONTENT2017 is the year of long-form content. Yes, your audience only spend a very short period of time reading your content but what about the community of yours that is dedicated to read detailed content? Writing content between 500-800 words is somewhere in between both short and long content and this is where content doesn’t perform well. It’s too long to read quickly, and too short for an in-depth read. Create long-form content that is over the 1,000 word mark to give your audience something they can spend the time reading. I hope the above 21 content marketing tips will help you share content online. Let’s take this one step further for you, and help YOU effectively share your content on Social Media. 2017 has already flown by, and so much has happened in the world of Social Media and to help you better understand all of the new features, tools, tips and tricks I am going to be running a brand new, and exclusive webinar on the 1st March at 7pm. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:
Source:http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/21-effective-useful-content-marketing-tips-01734579#P6WrJeC7lQVe5fUX.97 By Olga Bedrina Both corporations and small businesses are successfully leveraging social media to increase their visibility and maintain contact with customers. However, the difference is that SMBs may not command the resources that large corporations do. Still, social media can level the playing field because it is accessible to small marketing teams, one-person marketing departments, and even business owners who have to wear many hats. What Small Businesses Need for Effective Social Media Marketing As a small- or medium-sized business marketer or owner, you might consider some effective tactics that can help you use social media marketing to reach your business goals. 1. Concentrate on the Most Effective Social Platforms for Your Company Small businesses usually can’t afford to establish a presence on every social networking platform. It takes time to attract followers and keep them engaged. Small business marketers might obtain better returns on their marketing investment by finding the platforms that have already attracted a good share of the audience for their content. This is especially true for companies who are just getting started with their social media efforts. It may take a little research to develop a target audience and where those people already connect online. However, some demographic data that’s already been published might hold important clues. For instance, Pew Research published a study of the typical demographics for large social sites:
2. Develop Valuable and Compelling Content Almost every kind of small business will face competition for their audience’s attention on any social networking site. It’s important to develop a reputation for high-quality, compelling, and useful content from the first day. Done properly, your brand can become the one that social networking site users are eager to learn from, engage with, and share with their friends. Content might be a mix of text, graphics, and videos. Typically, companies do well with concise content and punchy titles on social sites, and then they save their longer pieces for their own websites and sales pages. Any research that you can do upon the kind of content your audience already engages with will prove helpful when developing a content marketing strategy for your small business. 3. Acquire the Right Toolbox for Small Business Marketing Content and Account Management Developing content and managing social site accounts can consume a lot of time and other resources. On the other hand, SMB marketers can employ the right tools to maximize productivity and get an incredible amount done in a short time. Using the right tools can be compared to the difference between breaking boards with your hand or using a power saw. Even martial artists use a power saw when they want to build a table. First, align your content development and management strategy with your business goals. Your goals might include improving brand recognition, increasing revenue, and other worthy milestones. While all of your social content probably should not be sales content, it should work to support your overall goals of getting your name out there, collecting leads, or moving people along to your sales pages. It’s particularly important for smaller companies to focus on goals and develop some measurable outcomes. Small business owners and marketers may choose to develop a content strategy on their own or to work with consultants who have experience in this field.
Source:http://www.business2community.com/small-business/3-steps-cost-effective-social-media-marketing-smbs-01788297#BLcj6azAbZ5loXgx.97 By Keith O'Brien The goal of the survey was to “understanding where the current state of marketing - specifically agile marketing - is,” said Ed Breault, VP of marketing and industry solutions for Aprimo.
Breault talked about agile marketing as two somewhat similar things: Big A, which is the rigid adoption of agile product development with sprints and scrums and consistent iteration and releases; and Little A, which is the adoption of the culture and mindset of agile marketing, that is - to try things out and release them on the fly. “Agile has been trending over the years,” Breault said. “Gone of the days of the long-planned out, linear processes. You can't go to market the same way you go before.” But there's still much work to do. The study, done in conjunction with Forbes Insights, asked 300 marketers for their opinions about agile marketing and the state of their operations. Three out of four respondents said “agility of Marketing Operations” was a marketing challenge. The biggest impediment: 47% said “too much organizational bureaucracy” and 37% said the “difficulty proving the ROI of agile marketing.” Breault said that even those who have not implemented agile marketing know the term and are interested in learning more. “The [concept] has been around for quite awhile,” Breault said. If you haven't heard of the term and you work in marketing, good luck.” For the skeptics, Breault said that some people think agile isn't going to work at their company because they think the process is unstructured and ad-hoc. “It's actually a well-designed, focused process, he said. The biggest enemy of agile marketing, according to Breault is “Legacy: legacy systems. legacy mentality, legacy process.” He added: Agile is disruptive. Companies will look at all of the existing infrastructure that the organization has spent getting it to what it is today, so it's going against a culture that is heavily invested in [the status quo].” Source:http://www.dmnews.com/agency/businesses-far-behind-on-agile marketing/article/640077/ By James Scherer Are you running the Facebook marketing strategy for a small business? Are you looking to maximize the return you get from the time you spend on the platform? For small businesses, time is money, and money matters. Facebook can be a good investment of that time, but only if you know what you’re doing and know what to expect. This article will give you a comprehensive look at both, to give you realistic expectations and a complete strategy to make them happen. Facebook Marketing for Small Business – What to Expect If you were a large corporation with infinite budget and infinite staff, you’d actually be worse off than you are now. When you’re a huge business, it’s more difficult to be fun and friendly, more difficult to engage with your Fans on a personal level, and more difficult to find content which appeals to your broad audience. Not only that, but organic reach (the number of Facebook users who see your Posts without you paying anything to boost them) decreases – percentage-wise – as a business’ Facebook Page Likes get more numerous. The graph below is about 18 months old, but its findings remain valid: Most small businesses will fall between that 9.62% and 22.80% mark for organic reach. That means that, no matter what you do or how many best practices you follow, you shouldn’t expect more than 15% of your total Facebook Fans to even see the posts you share. But once we get that out of the way we can focus on a point more important than a disappointment in Facebook’s organic reach. It doesn’t matter anyway. Sure, it’s be nice if 100% of your Facebook Fans saw your posts. But they don’t. So let’s move on to maximizing the number of people who click through and are sent to your website. After all, that’s what we’re here for, right? You want to use Facebook to drive traffic and sales. Do you really care how many Likes you get on a blog article post if nobody’s clicking through to read it? Your Facebook marketing strategy shouldn’t be focused on increasing Facebook Likes or increasing engagement on the platform, it should be focused on driving a maximum number of people off it. So here’s what to expect….
Though things have calmed down a bit in the past few years, Facebook is still a platform where magic happens. Facebook Marketing for Small Business – Best Practices These are going to be best practices that can actually affect your small business’ success with Facebook posting and organic reach. If you want 100 generic best practices (like “use images” or “be helpful” I’d recommend the 100,000 other articles on this subject. 1. Use video: Facebook has been upfront about its algorithm’s love for video. “Video is the type of post that performs best by far. Video comprised about one percent of posts in the data we analyzed; we take about 1.5 million posts over the course of the month. But those posts generated eight times the reach and 12 times the shares when compared to other types of posts,” said SocialFlow CEO Jim Anderson. “[Brands] like PopSugar are playing to the strengths of what Facebook is prioritizing. We’ve seen an increase in organic reach from January [2016] to July [2016] of about 10 percent,” said PopSugar Senior VP of Product Marketing Chris George. (Source: MarketingLand) Top Tip: Facebook’s algorithm prefers its own video type to YouTube. Create your video and upload it into Facebook’s player, rather than uploading a link to a YouTube video. 2. Target your Post: Facebook allows post targeting by location and interest. Even if you only have a few hundred Fans, remember that they’re likely to be spread all across the country. At the very least, you should be sharing the same post a few times based on timezone. 3. Share content from other creators: This is called “user-generated-content” and it’s a huge part of being a friendly brand. It’s also great for you: You don’t have to do the work to create content, the creator is excited to be shared (and so shares it enthusiastically) and your Fans feel like you’re really listening to them and care about them. REI is a great example of a Facebook Page showcasing user generated content (even if those people aren’t yet their Fans): Top Tip: Instagram is a great place to source image content related to your business. 4. Tap into what people are thinking about during holidays & current events: Here’s a great example of this from Budweiser’s Canadian Facebook Page, supporting Toronto FC after a loss: A Few More Facebook Posting Best Practices:
Facebook Marketing for Small Business – Promotions Facebook promotions are one of the best ways for your business to get rolling and keep your Fans engaged with your Page as well as coming in on a regular basis. Recommended for YouWebcast, March 2nd: The Psychology of Designing User Habits with Nir Eyal I recommend businesses of all kinds (B2B and non-Ecommerce as well as the prettier-product industries) run a few promotions a year, coinciding with a product launch or the holidays. Here are the top four Facebook promotions I recommend you run… 1. Facebook Sweepstakes To get rolling, go with a straight sweepstakes. They’re simple and can drive immediate and serious return. They work very simply: you offer a prize relate to your business and promote it to people you think would be interested (your target market). Those who are interested check out the offer and provide their email address for a chance to win. You give away one prize and get hundreds (if not thousands) of email addresses of prospective customers. And, in the process, you showcase your brand and build Facebook popularity for your small business. Here’s a sweepstakes post example from PostPlanner (which is a successful social media management tool, if you needed any more evidence that social media promotions work…): 2. Facebook Referral Promotions With referral promotions (a bit more complicated, now) you engage with a third-party promotion tool (like Wishpond) and incentivize entry to your promotion. Everyone who enters gets a small prize and gets more chances at a grand prize by referring friends using an entrant-specific URL. The strength of a referral promotion is that the entrants do so much of the work for you. They share your promotion as much as they can with their entire social network and community on your behalf. 3. Facebook Photo Contests With Facebook photo contests your Fans (and non-Fans) submit a photo around your promotion’s theme (cute baby, winter wonderland, etc) and then share your promotion with their network, asking them to vote for their entry. You get the email addresses of all the entrants as well as every one of the people who vote. And, like a referral promotion, a lot of the work is done for you. Top, Page-Growing Tip: A fantastic way to drive Facebook Likes is to add a “Like-Prompt” entry popup on your promotion’s landing page. Well within Facebook’s regulations, this popup asks page visitors to Like your page (but doesn’t require it). 4. Facebook Coupons Facebook coupons are the simplest promotion type out there – but making them “Facebook exclusive” can yield some serious results. Discounts are the greatest motivator for Facebook users to Like a brand page. In 2012 (and I doubt it’s changed much since then), Mashable found that 34% of Facebook users were motivated by “Promotions & Discounts.” 21% (the second-place motivation) cited “Free Giveaways” as their motivation: To learn more about Facebook-exclusive promotions and how powerful they can be for your business, check out my article “How to Use a Fan-Only Promotion to Turn Followers into Leads.” Facebook Marketing for Small Business – Advertising Facebook Ads aren’t just an inevitable part of marketing on Facebook, they’re also a good business decision. Let’s do some math… Let’s say an hour of your time is worth $50. To create posts which reach 1000 users within your target market, you’d need to spend at least an hour a day, every day, for a week. To expose your brand to 1000 targeted Facebook users, you can advertise and pay by “impression” – about $10. To drive 75 or so targeted, qualified prospective customers to your site you can pay by click, about $50. Maximizing the Affordability of Facebook Ads For a small business, budget is always a big part of planning a marketing campaign. Here are a few of the most influential ways to maximize the return you get from your Facebook Ad campaigns… 1. Target Smart: Your targeted Facebook audience should be between 50 and 200,000 people – specific enough to be people very likely to be interested in your offer, broad enough for the low click-through-rate (most Facebook ads average .05-.1%) to work. 2. Rotate your Ad Creative: Most prospective customers need to see your business’ offer before they’ll even consider clicking through on it. In Facebook advertising, this is referred to as “Frequency” – the number of times (on average) the people within your target audience have seen your ad on their newsfeed. Your Facebook Ad click-through-rate is going to be significantly higher if you don’t show the same exact ad over and over again to the same Facebook user. Instead, create two or three ads (with the same offer) and rotate them to the same audience over the course of your campaign. Snapshot from my full article on this subject: For instance, let’s say your company is advertising men’s shower gel. You decide to rotate in a weekend-focused variation of advertisement on Friday: “Going out tonight? Smell like you’re trying with Acme Mens Body Wash.’ Watch the ‘Clicks’ line to see if the text change resulted in a CTR increase, or if your basic text is still competitive.
For more on this, check out “4 Ways to Combat Facebook Ad Fatigue.” 3. Optimize the Page that Ad Traffic is Being Sent To: This should not be your homepage. That’s worth repeating… Do not send your Facebook Ad traffic to your homepage. Instead, send it to a landing page built specifically for the ad campaign you’re running. There’s no point in spending a single dime on Facebook Ads if the traffic you’re sending to your website isn’t converting. Optimize the page they’re going to before hitting “Publish” on your ad, or you’ll just be tossing money down the drain. To see some examples of landing pages built specifically for visitors coming from Facebook Ads, check out my article “3 Examples of Landing Pages Optimized for Facebook Ad Traffic.” Alternatively, check out “5 Facebook Ad and Landing Page Combinations Critiqued.” For more on Facebook Ads, check out The Complete Guide to Facebook Ads. Wrapping it Up Hopefully this guide has given you a better idea of how your small business can find success with Facebook marketing. Your target market is on Facebook, you just have to reach them. And believing that Facebook can be ignored in favor of other social media platforms is, as yet, a pipe dream. We’re talking about 1.79 billion monthly users. That’s more than the combined total monthly usage of Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, Pinterest and Linkedin. It cannot be ignored as a viable marketing platform. So good luck! And let me know if you have any questions! Source:http://www.business2community.com/facebook/facebook-marketing-small-business-ideas-tips-examples-01783537#XRttSKPcF2LFXjtj.97 The term agile marketing has been bandied about for a few years now. A recent article went so far as to suggest 2017 will be the year agile marketing goes mainstream.
So should already stressed out marketers add agile marketing to their long list of things that keep them up at night? Should they even care? What Is Agile Marketing?Agile marketing takes its inspiration from agile software development. Agile software development (to really oversimplify things) breaks down software development or running projects into short, iterative sprints that consist of a somewhat self contained units. One of the primary advantages of this method is how it constantly tests the work, learns what’s working and course corrects if and when needed. That's the essence of agile marketing: using data to test a running campaign's effectiveness and then using that insight to course correct, adapt and iteratively improve the ongoing campaign. Which requires a discipline of using data and a collaborative marketing team. Is Agile Marketing New? As someone who has transitioned from technologist to marketing, I’ve managed both marketing teams and software development teams. In software development, Agile was a major change in how to get things done, especially in comparison with the legacy Waterfall method, which was characterized by long development cycles, annual major releases and a fairly rigid “go away we are building a big and important thing here” mindset. Marketing doesn't have this legacy. Marketing is agile by nature — or at least it should be. Every marketing plan is broken up into campaigns. These campaigns run for a finite time. You measure their effectiveness and if they worked you ran it — or some similar iteration — again, and if it bombed, you moved on and tried something else1. In parallel with Agile software development, these marketing iterations are done within a given framework. In software development you could be building a software product or implementing a website against requirements broken up into user stories. In the same way marketing campaigns have always been built within a framework of a brand message and a set of personas to target. Yes, our reaction times need to be faster in the digital age, we need to compress the turnaround times from idea to results. We have the data and tools to help us pivot, without having to wait for the print ads to run, the data to come in about our new TV ad or the door drop to indicate an uptick in sales calls. We often hear about the value of “failing fast.” While this compression of timeframes requires agility, it is a product of the current marketing environment and the evolution of tools, rather than a different approach or discipline. The term “Agile Marketing” seems to be a bleed of techie terms making it into mainstream language, much in the same way we don’t share advice, we write “life hacks.” Being an agile marketer (small "a") is a personal or leadership attribute that is a requirement of the role. And this isn’t new. A Quick Look at the TrendsAs a modern marketer, the arbiter is often in the data. I wondered if there was a buzz that would sway my opinion. Google Trends shows “Agile Marketing” is unpopular as a search term, when compared to other marketing disciplines. On it’s own, yes you can see a rise over the last five years, but side by side with other marketing subjects, it barely lifts itself off the flatline of the x axis. Could it be that it’s still early days and, like other disciplines that emerged from the chrysalis of buzz to become real (looking at you content marketing), we can find a pattern or read into the slight uptick of interest as a sign of things to come? According to Google Trends, “content marketing” was as popular a search term back in April 2009 as “agile marketing” is today, but the five years after that it steadily grew. That’s not really the same story for Agile Marketing, which emerged as a concept roughly the same time. Additionally, Google Trends shows “Agile Marketing” has not broken out of North America. Buzz indicates people are talking about something, not that it is a real, grown up, mature thing. When “content marketing” became mainstream (as folks are predicting for agile marketing in 2017), it already was a significant trend on Google. A Trip Down Marketing History LaneGranted, a cursory glance at search trends for a short article is not terribly scientific. Just because we aren’t talking about it (or searching for it) doesn’t necessarily mean we shouldn’t. But for me, there isn’t enough here for it to stand apart as a discipline. Marketers are the creatives in the business, the people who due to their curious nature are always looking for new ways to engage with the consumer, to experiment, to fail fast. I'd argue the craft of marketing is agile by nature. So yes, I would readily call myself “agile” — though I suspect it's as bad as calling yourself “cool.” But I just don’t think 2017 is “the year that Agile Marketing becomes mainstream,” if for no other reason than it has always been mainstream. A better marketing historian than I could probably pinpoint the year we decided on a brand story, told it in campaign chapters, started measuring the success of these campaigns and making decisions based on those metrics, but I suspect it’s not 2017. Source:http://www.cmswire.com/digital-marketing/is-agile-marketing-a-thing-or-just-business-as-usual/ By Meredith Wood How can business owners leverage existing technology and free (or low-cost) software to expand brand awareness and draw in customers?
According to a 2012 survey by Search Engine Land, 85 percent of customers said that they had used the Internet to find a local business. Of those surveyed, 75 percent stated that they trusted online reviews as much as personal recommendations. In our web-centric culture, it’s clear that the website and online presence of a business are now a critical component of its marketing strategy. But in the absence of a large budget, is it possible for an entrepreneur to grow his (or her) business on the cheap? How could they leverage existing technology and free (or low-cost) software to expand brand awareness and draw in customers? Read on to find out more about several useful marketing tools from Google. AnalyticsPowerful and constantly evolving, Google Analytics is widely regarded as the most popular and effective tool for measuring digital data and marketing ROI. With Analytics, entrepreneurs can understand diverse metrics such as the number of visitors, the location of visitors, which pages are the most popular and much more. Though the Google Analytics interface may take some time to get used to, its sheer functionality, customization and data-crunching capabilities are worth it. Users can also customize their interfaces, creating a number of different dashboards that track various stats. For example, you could set up one dashboard for ad campaigns that drive the most sales, another for external websites drive the most traffic to your site, and a third to see what countries and locations are sending you the most buyers. OptimizeOptimize by Google is one of the best, free software suites for marketers and entrepreneurs who wish to carry out simple, accurate A/B testing. Note: A/B testing, a term coined by user experience (UX) specialists, is when several versions of a specific page are shown to users, measured against the original, and assessed for effectiveness. A/B testing can be a very meticulous process: marketers test details ranging from more obvious features such as website taglines to smaller, peripheral considerations like the color and positioning of a call-to-action button. Because it links to Google Analytics, Optimize allows users to easily understand and analyze results, particularly if they already have experience with Analytics. A quick look at the Optimize interface will show that not only does the program assess the best version (the winner, so to speak) of the A/B test, but it will also give suggestions to further improve your website’s performance. AdwordsA pay-per-click advertising service, Adwords is deceptively simple — and highly effective. To use it, an entrepreneur picks a series of relevant keywords, which will trigger ads when input into Google. The genius of Adwords is twofold: it only charges a business when users click the ad, and at its most basic level, is essentially a fire-and-forget service: entrepreneurs can simply set a budget, a length of time, basic parameters like location, and let it run. Still, leaving an ad campaign on autopilot is not recommended. Adwords can be somewhat complicated and often run into snags, such as sending users to your homepage (and not a specific product page), ensuring that those who click the ad won’t actually buy anything on your website. Instead, to get the most out of your campaign, it’s important to understand how Adwords (especially its auctions model) actually works. Keyword PlannerExtremely helpful when it comes to keyword-based campaigns, Keyword Planner is essentially a brainstorming tool that helps entrepreneurs develop new, relevant search terms and keywords for their existing products, business and customers. Think of Google’s Keyword Planner as a thesaurus for Adwords: the more relevant, exacting words you have, the greater the ROI will be on your Adwords campaign. Instead of randomly generating barely relevant terms for an ad campaign, you can target certain search users and audiences with pinpoint accuracy. AlertsUsed by politicians, corporations and PR specialists the world over, Google Alerts is a simple, easy-to-use service that’s fantastic for entrepreneurs. Alerts allows you to set notifications based on specific keywords, essentially allowing you to monitor the latest news and developments in a particular area. For instance, if you own a think tank that specializes in analyzing current affairs and world news, you would set search terms which are relevant to your field of work, such as “President of the United States,” “ISIS,” “global trade” or “recession.” As such, your inbox will fill with alerts every time such terms appear in the media — allowing you to stay one step ahead of your competition and newsjack the current news cycle. Conversely, you can also use Google Alerts as a very effective little tool with which to spy on your competition, and keep up-to-date on their latest marketing materials and web copy. TrendsAs the name suggests, Trends allows users to gauge the popularity of any given search term over a set period of time. For instance, you can use Trends to find, and even compare, the popularity and frequency of several given search terms over a period of time. When it comes to entrepreneurs, Trends can accomplish the same thing, albeit in a more specialized form: business owners should seek valuable intelligence on a number of subjects, from how current events drives interest in their marketing and products to how keywords rise and fall in popularity. Mobile-Friendly TestBecause more and more people are on their smartphones each day, it’s important to gauge how quickly and seamlessly your website loads on multiple formats, ranging from mobile web browsers such as Safari to desktop programs such as Chrome or Firefox. That’s why Mobile-Friendly Test is a great tool: just type in your website URL and wait for Google’s crawlers to scan your page, then read the report. Are you using Google effectively?It’s more than possible to use both free and low-cost tools to effectively market your business. But unlike hiring a marketing professional, DIY search engine marketing requires time, research, and a willingness to experiment and take risks, from A/B testing different versions of your web pages to launching Google Adwords campaigns and regularly tracking your results. Source:https://www.business.com/articles/meredith-wood-business-guide-to-google-marketing-tools/ By Sophorn Chhay Even the smallest towns have more than one restaurant, and it seems like new establishments are opening all the time. In order to build a successful restaurant business, you need to be able to set yourself apart from the competition. Here are some creative mobile marketing strategies for restaurants to help you do just that.
1. Use Location AppsApplications that allow users to “check-in” at different restaurants offer you a unique opportunity to promote your business. Create an active presence on these applications to make your restaurant more visible to prospective diners. 2. Promote Your Restaurant on YelpYelp is an incredibly popular website, especially among people who are searching for a good restaurant. This website allows past patrons to leave reviews of their experiences. In many cases, prospective diners will read these reviews before coming to your establishment. Depending on the content of the reviews, they may drive away potential customers or bring them through the door. Pay close attention to the content of your Yelp reviews. Add as much information to your profile as you can and respond to any negative comments quickly. 3. Use Mobile to Support Your Loyalty ProgramsA solid loyalty program will keep customers coming back to your restaurant. Consider using existing loyalty applications to provide consumers with discounts and other incentives for returning to the restaurant in the future. Alternatively, you can also create your own loyalty program and use SMS messaging to distribute mobile loyalty rewards. 4. Offer ConvenienceNothing frustrates diners more than a long wait time. In many cases, customers will not only have to wait for a table when your restaurant is busy, but they will also have to wait a long time to receive their food. Consider allowing customers to make reservations via mobile so that they don’t have to spend time waiting. To provide even more convenience, partner with an application that allows diners to order their meals in advance. This will not only set you apart from the competition, but it will also increase customer satisfaction. 5. Use Mobile to Collect PaymentsThanks to advances in technology, customers can now pay for their meals using their smart devices. This saves your servers time and allows your customers to settle the bill as soon as they are ready to leave. Keep in mind that some diners may still prefer to pay their bills using traditional methods, so mobile payment should remain optional. 6. Leverage Social MediaSocial media profiles are an excellent tool for any ambitious restaurant owner. Build a strong social media presence complete with photos of food, a copy of your menu and information about your location and hours. Engage with users on social media, encouraging them to post about their experiences and share your restaurant’s page with friends and family. Mobile marketing may not make your restaurant a success overnight, but it can help you build a successful business over time. By following these tips, you can spread the word about your restaurant, bring in new customers and encourage previous customers to return. Source:http://nextrestaurants.com/restaurant-marketing/mobile-marketing-strategies-restaurants/ By Brian Basilico The news and social media are filled with items like fake news, alternative truths, lies, and some very hot and opinionated arguments about what is real and what is fake. I believe there are certain principles, especially when it comes to sales and marketing, that have stood the test of time. Today I want to talk about five truths that you need to know about marketing your business. Last week I bought a domain name, marketingtruthwhisperer.com. Now I don’t want you to think that everybody else is telling lies or alternative facts, but there’s a lot of misguided information out there. As a matter of fact, I was talking with one client and after I got through the consultation with him, he just said to me flat out, “You know what? I’ve talked to five people, and everything that you’re saying is completely contradictory to what they said." Okay, I get it. Other people have different ways of doing things. I have ways of doing things. Mine’s built on a system that I’ve done for myself, is tried and true for a lot of my customers, and they’ve gotten a lot of great results from it. What I want to do is kind of outline those five things that I think that you really need to understand when you start thinking about marketing your business. Marketing Investment The first one is marketing is an investment. A lot of people will tell you, “Hey, we can make you number one in Google. We’re going to bring you up in the rankings. We’re going to get you a ton of traffic,” and all this other stuff. That’s great. You know what? They probably can do that. But here’s the truth. The truth is none of that stuff matters. What matters is if you spend $1 you need to make three back. What I mean by that is you have to pay $1 for their service, you have to pay $1 for your time because in order to be successful in marketing you’re going to have to invest some blood, sweat, and tears into it. You just can’t have other people manage it and have it work. I mean larger businesses can, yes, ’cause they can afford to spend a lot of money to hire a huge team to do things. The team will report back all the analytics and they will prove that it’s making money. But in small businesses and medium size businesses, that’s much harder. What you have to look at is the money that you’re spending on marketing — is it truly an investment and are you getting a return on that investment, and are you getting $3 for every $1 you spend? At minimum you should be getting $2 back for every dollar you spend. So before you hand somebody $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 to do marketing, you have to ask the question, “Is this going to make me $9,000, $15,000, $30,000 when it’s all said and done?” If the people can’t give you some sort of guarantee — if they can’t guarantee 100% but at least they can say, “I believe that this is going to make you a return on your investment,” then do it. If they can’t, then run the other way. Website Investment The second thing I want you to think about is your website. Your website is a cornerstone of your business. It’s the place where people are going to search you out. They’re going to look for testimonials. They’re going to research you. I’ve had so many businesses say, “I don’t need a website. I’m just going to use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever, and I’m going to promote myself on social media.” The problem is you don’t own that and you can’t control all of the messages on those platforms. What you can control is your own website. Now, if your website is older than three years it may be time to update it, the look and feel, the content. Make sure that you’re building a solid foundation inside of your business that you can drive people to, that becomes a home base for you to be able to market to. Marketing System Investment The third thing that I want you to think about is having a marketing system. Now what I mean by this is it has to have so many moving parts to it. You can have a website. But are you using Google Analytics? Are you getting people on email lists? Do you have a funnel? What is set up inside of your marketing system that allows you to make money and measure it? That’s key. They can range anywhere from very simple to very complex. A very simple system is to get people to your website, and get them to a contact form or get them to pick up the phone. If you’re doing more complex systems, then maybe you get them to a webinar and then you create a form that gets people on your mailing list or maybe purchase a product or service or whatever it is. But the key thing is you really have to lay that system out and know what your expectations are, and more importantly, you have to know what your numbers are in each one of those pieces of that puzzle. Putting together a marketing system takes time, it takes some thought, it takes some energy, and sometimes it takes some help. If you don’t know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish, then ask for help. Get somebody who understands these things to come and help you lay that system out, and more importantly, make sure that you’re measuring what’s happening in that system on a regular basis. Team Building Investment The fourth piece of this puzzle is that it takes a village. When I say it takes a village, generally speaking not one person is going to be able to handle everything. An example of this is I’m a pretty good web developer but I’m certainly not a good content developer. I’m not a writer. I’m not a graphic artist. And I’m also not an expert in every aspect of the things that happen on the web. What that means is lot of times I have to bring in experts to help me build things not only for myself but for my customers. You want to make sure that all of the pieces of the puzzle, all of the pieces of the system, are being dealt with by professionals. Does it cost more? Yeah. But is it going to give you that return on investment? Let’s go back to that point. By getting a professional writer to come in and write good SEO copy that speaks to your audience, the chances of your success escalate rather than you trying to do it yourself. In an interview I did with David Garfinkel he said, “We as marketers have the hardest time writing our own sales copy because we’re too close to the forest to see the trees.” Sometimes it makes sense to get a third party to come in and help. That’s what you have to look at — do you have a team in place? And if you don’t, find those people, ask around, maybe hire somebody who has that team in place and can bring in the right pieces at the right time. You may not need them all at the beginning, but you certainly may need them throughout the process. Self Investment The fifth piece of this is a personal investment. I talked about this in a prior podcast, and that is you have to constantly invest in yourself to continue to learn things. Now if you are a business owner and you don’t want to learn these things, then invest in your staff, invest in the people who are going to be in charge of creating the marketing content for you. Make sure that they’re educated and they know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish. Who is your perfect client? What is their problem? What are they trying to solve? And how can we communicate messages that get them engaged and get them to talk to us first? Pick up that phone, fill out that form, join the email list. Whatever it is. You want to make sure that you’re investing in your infrastructure. That may mean investing in products and services and software, whatever it is, but make sure that you’re getting a return on that investment as well, that you’re getting some kind of bonus, making more money, seeing better results. Look at your marketing as an investment. Look at your website as an investment. Invest in creating the best marketing system you possibly can. Final Thoughts Don’t be afraid to ask for help. It takes a village of people to really make this happen. Then finally, invest in yourself, and if you don’t want to do it yourself, then invest in your team. Make sure your people are qualified and have the right tools and the right education to pull together a system that’s going to help you grow your business today.
I would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this subject. Comment below and share your experiences and suggestions on how investing in your business changed your business and provided a return on investment! Source:http://www.business2community.com/marketing/5-truths-need-know-marketing-business-01789133#HEyE8yzRRC6rxlpS.97 |
Marcus Guiliano
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March 2020
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