DudaOne

You can’t go far in 2019 without a website and one that is optimized for mobile devices. DudaOne not only lets you build your own website, but it also allows you to optimize it for mobile use as well. Customers expect you to have a website that is mobile-friendly since the majority of internet traffic comes from mobile devices now. Not being optimized for mobile is like trying to use a fax machine for marketing in 2019. DudaOne is ideal for startups and small businesses.

SendinBlue

Email marketing continues to be a more effective way to reach customers than social media or SEO. Create a sign up for a mailing list where customers can receive special offers or be notified about sales, and then use SendinBlue to mail out the offer or newsletter. SendinBlue is excellent for small businesses because it allows up to 300 emails a day to be sent for free. Even it’s “Lite” option is only $25 a month and lets small businesses send up to 40,000 emails during that period, more than the average startup will need for a low cost.

Postable

Mass mailing through snail mail is an excellent way to inform the public your small business or startup exists. You can include offers, sale dates, or thank you notes on postcards that are mass-mailed by Postable. The site lets you compose your messages, and they stamp and mail the cards for you. Small businesses and startups may not have the staff to undertake such tasks; Postable makes mass mailings possible for them.

Grammarly

Not every small business will have the staff or the time to proof mailings, website content, social media posts, or emails. Grammarly proofs all your writing for you and won’t break the budget of a small business or company just starting out. It is user-friendly, and you can integrate it right into a browser or download it for use with Microsoft products. When you are marketing, you don’t want to have grammatical errors or typos that go unnoticed until its too late.

Google Keyword Planner

If your small business plans on doing its own search engine optimization (SEO) or pay per click ads, then it is essential that effective keywords are used.  Choose keywords based on your company’s target demographic to get the most out of this tool.  Even if you do not plan to run pay per click ads, having the right keywords in your website’s content will help your SEO efforts to be more productive.

Survey Monkey

If you want your marketing to be truly successful, you need to know who you are marketing to and what they want. One of the best ways to understand what your customers want and to build your brand is through surveys. Knowing what your customer wants is essential to your marketing efforts. Survey Monkey is a simple way to gather customer information, and it has a free option perfect for small businesses and startups.

It’s not only big business that has the ability to market to its customers. Using these tools can help your small business or startup to reach a wider audience and build its brand.

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Marketing Strategy – Build a Customer Profile.

Attempting to start up a business takes discipline, and that includes developing and executing a marketing plan. Your first task as you build your marketing plan is to create a customer profile. Your profile will be the measurement you use to judge all subsequent marketing strategies. Here are some things that should be included in your customer profile.

• Customer age range.
• Customer income.
• Customer gender.
• Customer interests.
• Customer buying power.
• What your customer wants from your product or service.

Once you have developed your customer profile, you can hone it buy gathering information through customer surveys. If you are starting up an e-commerce business, you can gather demographic information at checkout and use tools like Google Analytics to determine how your customer arrived at your website. Having a clear idea of who your core customers are will allow you to build a brand around what your customer wants from your startup. Having demographic information also will enable you to know where to put your advertising dollars. It may be that print or radio ads reach your target demographic better than pay per click or search engine optimization, or vice versa. Knowing your customer is the first step in having a successful marketing strategy.

Marketing Strategy  – Know How to Reach Your Potential Customers.

Let’s say your company sells golf carts to people over seventy living in retirement communities; you would not want to allocate a lot of money to banner ads and pay per click on social media platforms. Advertising on a local radio station or billboards in the community might make more sense. Conversely, if you have are selling refurbished laptops to Millennials, you would want to be sure your website has content that speaks to them and is optimized for mobile devices.  Knowing where your customers live on the internet, or in the real world, will give you a better chance of getting your startup off the ground. There are a variety of tools on the internet that let you determine where to market to your target demographic. One of the oldest, but most effective tools used to reach a customer is still email. Offer a newsletter on your website, and you will instantly have both the customer’s email for future offers and demographic information. Email sill one of the most effective and inexpensive ways to reach your customers.

Marketing Strategy – Your Website Matters to Any Demographic

When it comes to inbound marketing, the number one thing is your company’s website. Regardless if customers arrive at your site through a search engine, or they read the web address on a business card or advertisement; your website needs to grab the customer’s attention. Make sure to use bright, vibrant colors and imagery that fall in line with your branding. Dull colors and uninteresting images won’t make the customer want to explore further. Make sure that you have engaging, relevant content that is easy to find and understand.  Customers won’t stay on your website long if they find it hard to navigate. Make sure your company uses a host for its website who has fast load times. Customer attention spans grow shorter every year, and they expect your site to load instantaneously.

Starting a new business can be both exciting and nerve-wracking, but if you follow these three tips, you are on your way to having a strong foundation for your marketing strategy.

The post Three Ways to Build Your Start-Up Marketing Strategy appeared first on Whats Up SWFL.

 Tip 1 – Know Thyself, Business.

In order to establish your brand, you have to decide what your brand message is before anything else.  What are the values that your business has and what you want to convey to your target customers? It needs to be organic; it has to grow out of what the business does well and what the company stands for as a whole.  Does your company specialize in quick service? Maybe you sell a hard to find product. Be sure to emphasize why your business is unique and better than your competitors. Whatever your company’s brand identity is, it is imperative that it is authentic.

 Tip 2 – Establish Brand Guidelines.

Once your company has a brand identity, its time to come up with brand guidelines. The best way to keep everyone in your company on the same page when it comes to your brand is to use a brand style guide.  A brand style guide unambiguously states what should be used in conjunction with your brand and what should not. It makes sure that your brand remains consistent and authentic.  Here are some things that will be controlled by your brand style guide:

• Colors
• Imagery
• Fonts
• Language
• Iconography
• Writing Style
• Uniformity among business cards, headers, and signage.

Having a brand style guide makes sure there are no discrepancies in the way your company presents itself to the world and makes sure that your brand is stated loud and clear.

 Tip 3 – Use a Logo That Stands Out.

A strong logo that imprints itself on a customer’s memory is essential and falls right in line with your brand style guide. The logo should reflect your brand identity and be faithful to the spirit of your company. When it is seen on signs, company vehicles, or stationary, it will help reinforce your brand. Why is a memorable logo so important? According to studies, it only takes seconds for a logo to make an imprint on someone’s memory. It takes longer for something spelled out in words to make an impact. Using glyphs or a visual in your logo can help it to be remembered. When a brand is easily identified, it has a higher chance of having return customers; your logo is a vital part of that identity.

 Tip 4 – The Customer is Always Right.

If you want to know who your target demographic is, you have to look no further than your customers. Your paying customers choose your business for a reason; it is wise to find out what their reasons are.  Asking customers to complete a survey is an excellent way to find out what they see in your brand. You can either use a survey when the customer check’s out online or set up a survey online that can be printed on a receipt.  Enticing the customer to complete the survey with a free giveaway always leads to more completed surveys. Once you have collected the surveys, then you will find out who your customers are, their income, interests, demographics, and preferences.  Once you apply the data to your branding, it will be sure to bring greater awareness and an improved bottom line.

If you follow these suggestions for branding, then your small business is on its way to building better brand awareness.

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If you are considering using pay per click (PPC) Facebook ads, but you are still on the fence. There are some very compelling reasons why you should get off the fence. Aside from Facebook being the third most visited website in the world, there are some excellent ways to drive traffic to your company’s website.

Facebook Ads Have A Global Reach.

As previously stated, Facebook is the third most visited website in the world, according to SimilarWeb and has nearly 11 pages viewed per visit. The average user on Facebook spends 10 to 20 minutes per day on the site. Facebook receives nearly a trillion views per month, an unbelievable statistic. With these kinds of numbers, someone interested in the goods or services you are selling is bound to see your ad.

Global Reach that Allows Specific Targeting Options.

One of the most significant advantages that Facebook ads have is that its PPC advertising allows you to get as specific as you need to in marketing to an audience. Every time a user likes a page, it goes into Facebook’s database to be used for targeted advertising later on. Here are some of the options Facebook gives you:

• Location
• Gender
• Income
• Behaviors
• Age Group
• Ethnicity
• Language
• Career Field
• Interests on Facebook

These are just a few of the options you have for your company’s Facebook ads. How would this work in a Facebook ad? Well if you are selling a fantasy novel, then you could target 18-35-year-old women who like books, are college graduates, have liked similar books such as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, has an income of between $50,000 and $500,000 annually and drives a Mercedes Benz.  You could get even more specific than that with your targeting, but the thing to remember with all PPC advertising is that you can cast too broad or too narrow a net. Going back to our fantasy novel example, if you only target people who like books, you are choosing too general a category. Your ad could appear to people who like cookbooks and have no interest in a fantasy novel; thus you would be wasting views (and the cost of the ad) on people who have no internet in what you are selling. Conversely, if you choose too many demographic categories in your Facebook ad, only a few users may actually fit the profile, and you will end up with a handful of views.

Likes Convert to Sales.

Facebook has a definite impact on what users buy and what they don’t buy. Recent studies show that 40% of Facebook and Twitter users buy a product after they have liked it on a social media page. Out of all the social media platforms, Facebook has the most significant influence on what its users will buy. By placing your ad in the line of sight of a potential customer, you significantly increase the chances that your Facebook ad will convert into the purchase of a good or service.  Facebook is also the top social media platform where consumers discuss goods and services. Facebook has the ability to get your ad in front of one of those consumer groups and boost your sales not only through clicks but also through word of mouth. It is word of mouth from Facebook friends that will influence the decision to purchase what you are selling.  A 2012 study showed that 81% of consumers make them likely to buy a good or service based on a Facebook friend’s recommendation.  This means your ad will create views, likes, and perhaps shares. All of which will boost the chances of conversions.

Facebook remains a popular website, and their ads, an effective way to reach potential customers.

For a free 30 minute consult contact us at WHAT’s UP SWFL

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Be Punctual.

If you want your ad text to make an impression on customers, you first need to impress Google. Adhering to a few simple rules will keep your ad from winding up in Google jail. Don’t include repeated punctuation marks in a headline like “Buy Now!!!!” or “Who can match Our Prices???”; repeated punctuation marks are sure to be seen as a red flag. Also, do not use exclamation points in your headlines, only use them in the body of the description. Symbols like Asterisks, pound signs (hashtags), and others that are generally not used should be excluded. Misleading symbols and numbers  are not permitted, so avoid thier use. Make sure you capitalize the first letter of each word in your headline, this will make it stand out and grab a customer’s attention, but it does not extend to writing it in all caps. Remember, writing in all caps is like shouting, bad edict.

Create Appealing, Relevant Headlines With High Volume Keywords

Just because you are using high volume keywords doesn’t mean they are being used correctly. Composing a headline that uses keywords to attract your target demographic is not the only consideration, they also must fit the content, Google penalizes now for not matching headlines and keywords to content.

Using Google’s Top Keywords in Paths

Keywords should be used often; this includes paths, although some forethought should be applied. If your ad is for latex mattresses, you should use a subcategory that has another keyword to attract the desired demographic.  Here is how it would work:  Latex Mattresses/Pillowtop. It is a similar concept to subdomains on a website.

The Importance of Ad Extensions

If you want your ad campaign to be successful, then ad extensions are vital. Having multiple quality extensions will advance your ad’s standing with Google. It also provides the customer with essential information about your products or services.

Get Your Customer’s Attention Quickly and Finish with a Strong Call To Action.

In this day and age, everyone’s attention span has been dramatically reduced, and you only have seconds to grab the customer’s attention. Make sure headline one is impactful and exciting so that the customer reads the ad and will click through.  Clearly, this means having a compelling call to action at the end of the ad, after all, it is ultimately about the customer buying your good or service.

Using Trial and Error

It may take numerous re-writes of your ad before you find the results you want.  The best way to determine how to re-write your ad is to have a group of up to five ads to start with. Watch which terminology works best and use it in future ads.  This doesn’t mean you should just let an ad sit idle, keywords and structure should be adjusted at least once a quarter.

If you follow these suggestions, you should see an improvement in the performance of your ads.  Stay one step ahead of your competition by adjusting your ad based on Google’s Search Term Report.  The time and effort you put into your ads will pay off in the end.

Want to learn more about digital and social media marketing? Read our other blogs at Teach Me Social.

The post How to Reach Customers and Get Google’s Attention appeared first on Whats Up SWFL.

Video Leads To Conversions, Conversions, Conversions.

We will start with the most compelling reason to use video in your content today, converting user visits into transactions. Cisco stated that in 2018, half of all traffic from mobile devices was to stream video. That is a staggering amount of traffic just to stream videos. Still not convinced? A recent study showed that by adding a videos to a product or landing page increased conversions by 80%. Another study showed that 74% of customers who viewed explanatory videos on a product or service ended up buying the product or contracting the service. These stats, while impressive, are not really surprising. Infomercials have been around since the 1980s, and regardless of if the product being sold is legitimate or not, infomercials persist because they convert viewers into sales. That same period saw the rise of home shopping channels which are still with us because like infomercials, they are a form of video that converts views into transactions. Taking advantage of this concept by adding  videos to your company’s website is just continuing an already long successful trend. Recent studies show that people prefer seeing a video on the internet over reading about a product, but it has always been that way. Many people prefer seeing a movie over reading the novel. With that in mind, we come to email.  As noted in this post, email is an excellent marketing tool, and by including a video in it, you increase the chances of the customer using your product or service.

Brand Identity and Customer Loyalty.

You may already be building your brand through social media and your company’s website. You have a style branding guide which you adhere to down to the font you use and what kind of pictures are acceptable for marketing.  Your company makes sure that your product or service is always high quality and is part of why you have good customer loyalty. Video can take these two concepts and further grow your brand and enhance customer loyalty. Video allows customers to find out about your company, products, and its ideals. When you provide customers with interesting and useful information in a video, you are expanding consumer trust and in reality, building a legion of advocates for your product. These advocacies that are spread by word of mouth are highly effective. In fact, there is a secondary SEO effect when your company’s supporters share your videos on social media, search engines will take note, and it could boost your ranking on search engine result pages.

So, video has earned its keep over the decades and always translates to newer forms of technology well. Undoubtedly, video will continue to be at the forefront of the internet and newer mobile devices over the coming decade and beyond.

The post The Rebirth of Video in Marketing appeared first on Whats Up SWFL.

The Customer Trusts Email.

As opposed to spam, when a customer signs up to be on a mailing list, they gave given their consent to receive emails from your company. They want to receive more information about your company because they like the product or service you provide and want to be aware of any new offers.

Customers Want to Feel Like an Insider.

People love to stay on top of things, and when they receive news about a product or service your company has to offer before the general public, they feel like they are important. This effect is especially true when you offer coupons or early sales exclusively to the people who have signed up for your mailing list. Also, the average person checks their email several times a day because that is where more critical message such as bills and special offers are received. While social media may provide entertainment to customers, they perceive email as being much more important.

Email Marketing is Much Cheaper than Pay Per Click or Media Adverting.

The cost involved with email marketing is getting a mailing list (which is free), the time to write it, and the cost of the software or service to send it out. There is very low overhead when it comes to email marketing, and a hefty ROI, up to thirty times the investment on average. While Pay Per Click forces you to bid on an ad that may or may not be seen, emails have no such costs. No other form of marketing lets you reach thousands of customers for so little cost. Email also lets you include as much, or as little content in your message as you want.

Email Marketing Lets You Determine Your Target Demographic.

When a customer signs up for your mailing list, you can add a couple of optional fields that will help you understand who your customers are.  Ask customers about their gender and age, but don’t ask too many questions, or they are likely not to sign up for your email list.  You can also gather vital information like inbox rates, open rates, and unsubscribes.

Email is an Excellent Brand Loyalty Tool.

When you send customers on an email list exclusive offers and inside looks at your company, you are fostering trust in your company. Perhaps no other aspects of your company aside from the actual products or services being sold and the level of customer service are as effective as email in building loyalty. Customers who identify with your brand are always pleased when they receive an email from your company. There is no other marketing tool that can bring the level of customer loyalty that email does.

As more ads are run on social media and search engines, people are ignoring them at an increasing rate. This trend means that the future of marketing is in fact, email-based. So, if you want to stay ahead of the marketing trends, look to the past and email marketing.

If you would like a free consult on how we can help you with your email marketing, request your free 30 minute consult today.

The post Five Reasons Why Email Marketing Still Matters appeared first on Whats Up SWFL.

Strike a Balance.

When Instagram users follow a company, they want to see professionally taken, artistic photos, but they also want to move aside the curtain and see how your company works and how products are made. Finding a balance between these two concepts allows your company to express its brand while at the same time, promote new and existing products or services.  Use the comments section to use language in line with your branding along with an inspiring, emotion invoking picture.  If the image is of a product or service, use the comments to promote the product, be sure to give details not readily available on your website or in advertisements. Making your company’s Instagram posts have some level of exclusivity allows your followers to feel as if they are an insider and will make them want to visit the link to your website in your profile.

Use Stories.

If you want to give your followers a real feel of how your company works, then using stories is an excellent way to convey a sense of exclusivity your followers desire. Going onto a factory floor with a cellphone and recording a minute or so of activity with commentary of what is going on in the video will resonate with your followers. Stories only last for 24 hours, so it adds to your followers’ sense of being on the inside. You can also create slide shows in stories which can help create a sense of what your brand is all about.

Stay Consistent.

When your company posts on Instagram, it is vital that all imagery, videos, and language are strictly conforming to your branding rules. Don’t post something that is the antithesis of your brand; it confuses your follower and erodes any progress made in building your brand. If your business is floristry don’t post images of cars or kittens and hope to keep building your brand. Consistency is key in branding, not just with Instagram, but all of your company’s media. Being inconsistent with your brand sends mixed signals about your company’s identity.

So, if done properly, you can use Instagram as another tool in your company’s branding. Just remember to post appealing content that interests your Instagram followers.

If you need help with your Instagram marketing or any social media marketing ask about our free 30 minute consult at FREE CONSULT 

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Know Thy Brand.

The first step is to improve your branding on your website is to understand your brand. What does your company stand for and who are its primary customers? Is your company buttoned up and formal, or is it relaxed and casual? Will your company use humor to convey things, or does it want to take an authoritative tone? Consider what your company does and what type of impression is appropriate. If your company manages funeral homes using humor would be a bad idea.

If your company is struggling to find its brand identity, then it would be wise to employ a marketing agency to create a style branding guide. A branding style guide is a beneficial tool that you can use across all media from digital to print. It helps make sure that all language used by your company from web content to social media, to press releases will conform with criteria that best relays your company’s brand. It dictates things such as fonts that your company uses, color schemes, Iconography, imagery, the composition of content, and composition of photography. When designing your website, a branding style guide will keep it from straying too far from your branding.

User Experience Design (UX).

Remember that part of your branding is if your company is how customer satisfaction focused it is or not.  Most successful companies are known for their exemplary customer experiences and to build brand loyalty, your website should follow that example with UX design (user experience). UX design is predicated on making the interaction between a given product or service a satisfying and pertinent experience.  With regards to your web design UX means:

• Quick Load Times.
• Easy Navigation.
• Vibrant and Pleasing Colors.
• Understandable Language that Avoids Jargon.
• Engaging and Interesting Content.
• Clean and Elegant Design.

Be Confident, but Humble.

It is unprofessional and annoying to customers when they visit a website, and it brags about how great the company is, especially when it is a little known or recently established company. Your goal in your company’s website design is to build customer loyalty. You undermine that goal when your site’s language comes across as braggadocios, or a customer buys your product or service, and the reality of what they purchased can’t live up to the hype on your website. You damage your brand when you over-promise and under-deliver. State why your product or service is high quality, but don’t make promises that are impossible to keep.

Putting it All Together.

When you combine a clear company identity, quiet confidence, and UX focused web design, you are expanding your brand while increasing the chance that visitors to your company’s site will convert into loyal customers.

Check out some of our other blogs at Teach Me Social

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Don’t Stuff It.

At the dawn of the internet and the birth of Google, all searches were rudimentary and focused solely on keywords. It was not uncommon to see the bottom of a web page filled with hundreds, even thousands of different words, many (actually most) of which had nothing to do with the content on the page; this practice was known as keyword packing.  Over the years, Google and search engines such as Bing have improved the algorithms to punish keyword packers.  In short, if you get spammy with repeated phrases like “the best furniture store,” “the best furniture in town,” “the top furniture store” or you use keywords totally unrelated to your topic, you will end up getting lower placement on search engine result pages (SERP).

The Correct Words are Key.

Keeping in mind keyword stuffing is bad; using the right keywords is vital to your SEO. The trick when choosing keywords is to select ones that are relevant to your target demographic. There needs to be a balance between casting too wide a net and being too specific. For instance, if you are an attorney then you want to chose a keywords and phrases that are not too generalized, for example “Lawyer” is important but is used by every other attorney with a website, making sure to use a phrase like “Bodily injury lawyer in Naples” will separate you from lawyers in general and makes it specific to your region. There are tools which can help you find the right keywords such as Moz Keyword Explorer and the Keyword Planner in Google AdWords. Soovle is another useful tool that lets you see what search phrases are being used by potential customers with regards to a keyword.

Be Original.

This point is straightforward. Plagiarize someone else’s content, and search engines will harshly downgrade your status. Cutting and pasting content is not only wrong; its not going to help your SEO results. Don’t plagiarize content, period.

Being Immobile.

Today, the majority of searches and e-commerce purchases on the internet are done with a mobile device. It does not matter how good your keywords and content are on your website; if your site is not optimized for mobile devices, you can expect a low return on investment from your SEO campaign.

Ignoring Titles and Image Descriptions.

Make sure your title contains relevant keywords, and it matches your content. This point is often overlooked and can negatively impact your SEO campaign. In addition, make sure that the alt tags of your images use keywords; they are ready by search engine signals as well.

Slow Loading and Downtime.

If you have invested time and effort into your SEO campaign, but your site host has slow load times, then you can expect that visits to your company’s sites won’t convert into paying customers. The average internet user waits a total of three seconds for a website to load before they leave and you can expect that the amount of time will shrink to instantaneous over the next few years. Using discount site hosts can be disastrous; in addition to being slow, they often go down. Imagine getting a top SERP ranking only to have your website down when customers click on the link. Make sure that your site host has both quick load times and little to no downtime.

If you keep from making these common SEO mistakes, then your campaign is taking its first steps to become a success.

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