All Entries Tagged With: "content marketing"
Why Your Website is the Foundation of Your Marketing Strategy
Let’s think about what your marketing strategy/campaign might look like? Integrated marketing as defined by the Direct Marketing Association (or DMA): “Integrated Marketing is an approach to creating a unified and seamless experience for consumers to interact with the brand/enterprise; it attempts to meld all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and social media, through their respective mix of tactics, methods, channels, media, and activities, so that all work together as a unified force. It is a process designed to ensure that all messaging and communications strategies are consistent across all channels and are centered on the customer.”
You get the gist…all of your messaging needs to be seamless so it’s super easy for your potential customers, and your referral partners, to ‘get’ what your brand is all about. This all starts with your website and consistently refers back to it, sends back to it (those valuable links embedded in your posts, blogs, emails, etc.) and depends on (drumroll please) yup, you guessed it…your website being that firm and supportive infrastructure!!! Once you have a solid website everything else you do can, will, and should point back or rely on it.
Networking & Email campaigns…
Networking? How and why does this have to with your website being so important? We’re not going to lie here…we believe that even though we’re ‘digital marketing experts’, it always has been and always will be about people and relationship based marketing. After all, what we really do is help our clients understand who their audience is, then we identify the best and most effective ways to communicate with them. When you’re at a networking event and you make a solid connection (vs. shoving a business card at someone and/or having that done to you), you usually exchange business cards and follow up afterwards with a personal email or phone call. (At least you should!) Do you then go to their website, check out and connect with them on their different social platforms? We’re guessing here that they’ll be doing the same with you. Then, we’re hoping you add them to your email database/list, and that you’ll be consistently in front of them so you stay top of mind. Well, a solid email campaign will be (hopefully) sending your audience back to your website for more! That website that really speaks clearly to them about what you do and of your unique value proposition…
Blogging & Social Media…
We often blog, post and talk about the importance of a solid content marketing campaign, and we will most certainly be discussing this in more detail tomorrow on our weekly Facebook Live (every Wednesday at 1:00 we will discuss that week’s blog – among other things)!
So, to sum it all up, do you have a solid foundation? Is your website agile and easy for you to post weekly blogs to? Is it optimized for SEO with the appropriate tags and backend data? Or…did your cousin’s friend at college build your website or maybe your retired uncle from IBM that used to write code? We can’t tell you how many times people come to us with websites that are antiquated, not mobile friendly, not user friendly, not optimized for SEO (AT ALL)…and on and on!
When it comes to investing in your business some things are truly worth the investment and well designed websites are definitely one of them!
Some things to check out like a Q & A blog by Seth Godin on ‘What works for websites today?’. He wrote it in 2013 but it’s timeless! and another great (albeit extremely short and to the point) blog by Seth.
What’s Your Business’ Story?
NOUN, PLURAL STORIES.
1.a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the hearer or reader; tale.
noun
1.a person’s regular occupation, profession, or trade.
“she had to do a lot of smiling in her business”
synonyms: work, line of work, occupation, profession, career, employment, job, position;
2.the practice of making one’s living by engaging in commerce.
“the world of business”
synonyms: trade, trading, commerce, dealing, traffic, merchandising
Every business has one. It’s time to tell yours…
Do You Blog?
Inspire and engage your audience by creating consistent content. Is blogging a word that glazes your eyes over, maybe brings out a bit of a cold sweat and even creates some anxiety? We promise it doesn’t have to be that stressful.
Who are you? What do you do? Why do you do it?
Understanding who you are, what you do and why you do it is the key to what will make YOUR blogs interesting. Do you feel like you don’t have anything to share that people will want to read? We bet you’re wrong! Have you ever heard the snowflake analogy? It is so very important(we really can’t stress this enough) to clearly identify, then always be mindful of, your differentiator(s) and unique value proposition(s), and not just when we’re talking about blogging…but as the base of everything you do in your business!
Know your audience?
We’re not just talking about your potential clients here (though of course that is a major part of the audience you want to be in front of) but we also recommend you stretch a bit and think about who might refer clients or business to you. Do you have strategic partnerships or collaborative and complimentary business relationships that might be prone to sending business your way? Don’t forget about friends and family too. Having a clear understanding of ‘who’ needs to know exactly what you do and why you’re special is crucial.
Help them help you!
We are always using this simple phrase ‘help them help you’. Think about it, how many times have you read an email, a blog or an article that you’ve wanted to share with a friend, family member, colleague or your network(s)? Do you share? Have you shared? If you did or do share content, think about how easy or difficult it was. If you wanted to share with your network(s), was the email, blog or article enabled with easily sharable links – like Twitter, Facebook (to personal or a page you manage), Google+, LinkedIn, etc…? If you wanted to share with an individual, how did you do it? Did you forward if it was an email? Did you just copy and paste the URL if it was a blog or article? Make your content easily sharable! Remember that old Vidal Sassoon commercial “and she told two friends, then she told two friends…” help them help you!
How often? How much?
We usually recommend you write at least 2 blogs per month. We also usually recommend you utilize these blogs in your email campaigns, post to social media and so on. As for length…that depends on what we’re talking about, but for blogs the basic rule of thumb is 500-600 words – although you can do as little as a few sentences or much longer. When you use your blogs in your email campaigns we often recommend you share the first two paragraphs then have a link back to the website so they can read more, which increases traffic to your website!
What should you write?
You’ve identified what you do and why you do it. We’re guessing there are all kinds of things you can write about that your audience will find interesting. Can you put together a list of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)? Maybe keep a note pad near by and jot down ideas as they come to you. We promise that it’s a lot like exercise… hard at first, then it starts to feel good and gets easier the more you do it. Check out some tips for dreaming up content here. We guarantee that the more prepared and committed you are, the more successful it will be. Consistency pays off BIG time!
Happy Blogging.
Should You Outsource Your Business’ Marketing?
Who is in charge of marketing – creation and execution – within your business? Is it a person or a team? If it’s a single person, is that his or her sole focus, or is he or she wearing multiple hats and ‘handling marketing’ is one of them? So often, small businesses (we’re talking solopreneurs to businesses with 50+ employees) don’t understand the value of a solid marketing strategy. We’re not criticizing you here, not at all…it’s what we do and sometimes even we struggle with prioritizing our own marketing efforts! Marketing and sales go hand in hand. Yes, we know this is an age-old argument, but it’s true. Marketing compliments and supports (or at least it should!) sales, and without sales…well, all businesses need to sell, right?
Some food for thought here on whether you might want to consider outsourcing some or all of your marketing. Larger companies with bigger budgets often have both internal and external (outsourced) teams, which is often optimal, but smaller companies can still experience similar benefits with an internal individual or point person and an outsourced team. Many smaller companies appoint an individual within their team who is ‘self-taught,’ and though that person may make the perfect internal point person or lead while working with an outsourced marketing company, they remain limited in their breadth and depth of experience and expertise.
The 5 main benefits of outsourcing marketing:
- Cost
- Access
- Time
- Experience
- Education
Cost:
Let’s start with money! Having a full-time, in-house marketing expert, or team, is expensive and can cost up to 6 figures. Hiring an external digital marketing team that remains educated and at the top of their field can save you money and bring you top-notch expertise!
Access:
Having access to individuals that focus solely on digital marketing and trends (which literally change on a daily basis) will often provide that extra edge over your competition. Not everyone understands, or values, the importance of staying agile and hyper focused on growth, and having an objective external team assisting with developing, executing and analyzing your growth strategies could give you the upper hand!
Time:
Recruiting, hiring, training and managing internal marketing teams takes time. We don’t need to remind you that time = money! Freeing up your valuable time to focus on what you’re good at is critical to your business’ success.
Experience:
Marketing companies have a depth of experience in all aspects of what you’ll need to create and execute a successful integrated growth strategy. Projects and tasks to consider when deciding on whether or not you might want to hire an outside team:
-Strategic Planning
-Designing Growth Strategies
-Executing Marketing/Growth Strategies and Campaigns
-Website Development
-SEO Campaign Development and Management
-Email marketing
-Social Media Marketing/Management
-Blogging & Content Marketing
-Video Marketing
Education:
Staying on top of the ever-changing marketing climate is like following a rocket ship that is zigging and zagging through outer space! From the many different social platforms’ nuances, to tweaking your company’s voice and messaging specific to your audience, to analyzing your SEO and so much more…it is literally a daily commitment to stay on top. If you’re one of the lucky ones that understands the value, and is able to invest in, the constant education for an individual or team, then we high five you!
Marketing companies generally charge much less than it would cost to hire one full time expert and they provide fresh, objective and comprehensive input. While we understand that many business owners may be reluctant to hire an outside team, we wanted to outline some of the many benefits!
