Updating Your Digital Marketing Strategy Post COVID-19

If you’re like most small business owners, the COVID-19 pandemic has almost certainly left you reeling.

The closure of “non-essential” shops and services, combined with widespread travel restrictions and lockdowns has brought about the perfect storm for many local brick-and-mortar establishments.

It’s been a rough few months that’s for sure…

Now we’re beginning to see a drop in new COVID-19 cases, and governments are beginning to ease lockdown measures, it’s probably a good time to start contemplating how to get your business back on its feet. One of the best ways to get the ball rolling is to implement a solid digital marketing strategy.

To that end, we’ve put together a guide that will refresh your digital marketing knowledge and lay the foundations for success in a post COVID-19 landscape:

Laying Down Some Ground Rules:

Before we get started, it’s vital that you tread cautiously and take heed of the following important advice:

1. Create a Plan of Action:

When business owners complain that digital marketing “doesn’t work”, it’s usually because they jumped in at the deep end before they were ready.

Digital marketing can be tricky to master and slow to yield results in the early stages. To avoid disappointment, always work to a strict schedule and set realistic milestones along the way.

2. Avoid Multiple Platforms and Mediums:

Many marketing experts will tell you that you need to “dominate your niche” or “be everywhere” to attract the most interest.

There’s definitely some truth to that advice, but if you’re a beginner to the world of online marketing, it makes the most sense to master just one (or two) mediums at a time.

Advertising tools like Google Ads can have a steep learning curve, and social media and content marketing require a lot of up-front time investment. Spreading yourself too thinly will yield sub-optimal results everywhere.

Take our advice: Concentrate your efforts for maximum impact.

3. Avoid “Analysis Paralysis”:

Whilst we’re big advocates of self-learning, there does come a point where you’re actually going to have to take action and do something!

There are hundreds, if not thousands of armchair experts out there that have read every morsel of information about digital marketing, but have failed to make any headway whatsoever.

It’s good to be cautious. Just make sure it’s not an excuse for inaction!

4. Steer Clear of Marketing Gurus:

All the information you need to become a digital marketing expert is both easy to find and totally free. There is absolutely no advantage to purchasing the latest $2,000 course from a so-called “Marketing Guru”. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

5. Avoid Guesswork:

Never run adverts, post social media links or write Tweets on a hunch.

Everything you implement within the scope of digital marketing should be trackable and measurable. Test, test and test again. Never use random guesswork in your campaigns.

OK, Enough of the Lecturing, Let’s Get Started!

Paid Advertising Campaigns

Paid ads are the absolute gold standard in online marketing.

Getting your product or business to the top of a Google search page is still a worthwhile marketing tactic in 2020, but it requires SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or a long term content marketing plan. Both of those disciplines take a long time to master and yield results very slowly. In addition, both require a significant financial outlay if you decide to outsource the work.

On the other hand, paid ads are getting cheaper all the time and in addition, offer a very measurable (and fast!) way of getting eyes on your brand.

So which advertising platforms perform the best?

Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram for Business and LinkedIn Ads (in that order) all have their own unique advantages and disadvantages.

Take time to consider which of the platforms is most frequented by your potential customers. Your mileage may vary greatly.

What Should I Advertise?

If you’re a local business with very low competition, then it’s perfectly fine to run ads that link directly to your website. In some instances, these types of hyper-targeted ads can be extremely cheap, and yield excellent results.

With that being said…

In more competitive niches, savvy business owners might want to play a longer game: Try using adverts to direct prospective customers to well researched blog posts and even videos. Once you’ve enticed traffic onto your landing page, you can offer free giveaways, discounts and extra information in exchange for a visitor’s email address.

Why bother capturing a visitor's email?

In spite of the rise of social media, email is still the best medium by far for converting leads into sales. In part, that’s because the vast bulk of leads will only be converted into buyers after several interactions with your brand. Timed email sequences can help you to stay relevant with your prospects.

So to Sum up:

• Use carefully crafted ads to send prospects to a landing page.

• Give away great content.

• Persuade visitors to subscribe to an email list by offering an incentive.

• Use email sequences to gradually convert leads into sales.

Get a Google My Business Listing

If you run a bricks-and-mortar business, you absolutely MUST get a “Google My Business” (GMB) listing up and running.

When your establishment is listed in GMB it will appear above all of the organic search results in a dedicated box. In smaller towns and cities, this is an absolute game-changer that in many cases can render traditional SEO completely redundant.

In addition, GMB comes with some extra features that could work well for your business: GMB listings feature a “call” button for smartphone users, a “directions” link to Google maps and a small snippet of information about opening times and user ratings. Adding your business to GMB also gives you the opportunity to link directly to your main website.

One More Game Changing Feature:

Last but not least, many business owners are unaware of the newly implemented but extremely powerful “Google Posts” feature for GMB.

Essentially “Google Posts” allows businesses to share mini blog posts which show up in the right panel on Google searches. Each Post can be up to 300 words in length and include a photo, as well as a clickable call to action button and a date range (for businesses promoting events and special offers).

These posts sit somewhere between a Tweet, a landing page and a blog post, but come with the added benefit of an instant SEO boost and very prominent placement.

Social Media Marketing

If you’ve exhausted your advertising budget and you’re willing to commit the time, social media marketing can be powerful, but needs to be treated with care and a very light touch.

Rules of the Game:

1. Keep a Strict Posting Schedule

The number one rule of social media is to keep the accounts manned, and keep them current. If your Facebook or Twitter feed looks deserted, and you rarely respond to queries, you’re doing your brand more harm than good. If you don’t think you can commit to regular social media interaction, it’s actually best to drop the idea completely and concentrate on your company website.

Stay Away From Health and Politics

This might be the most controversial piece of advice in this guide, but hear us out:

You’re probably not a virologist, so stay well clear of reposting COVID-19 health advice. If a customer directly asks you about your implementation of social distancing rules or your hygiene policy, by all means gently reassure them. Just make sure you don’t get into heated debates about COVID-19 best practice.

Whatever advice applies to COVID-19 posting applies triple to political discourse: You’ve been warned. Just stay quiet.

We live in turbulent times. It doesn’t matter what cause you do or don’t endorse, stick to the business of selling products and leave the politics at home.

Concentrate on Being Helpful

If you can’t give health advice or show political support, what can you use your Twitter or Facebook feed for?

Simple! Give great advice and answer customer queries.

Be warm, honest and caring and engage with your local community. Get back to the roots of what made social media so great in its formative years.

Handling Postponed Events

Were you using digital marketing to promote an event before the lockdowns and social distancing rules came into force?

How are you planning to bring your event back to life?

Know When to Pivot

None of us can truly gauge when life will return to normal. Especially when discussing any kind of event where a crowd will gather.

In this situation, the best advice is to keep your powder dry, keep the budget tightly constrained and learn how to read the social media queues and analytics to keep abreast of the situation.

When marketing during uncertain times, it’s important to be able to pivot on a dime. If you need to move from a national to a more regional event, so be it.

Are you worried the event will get the go-ahead just in time for bad winter weather? Don’t rush to reschedule if the event would be more successful next spring.

We’re living through unprecedented times. If all of the major international events have been cancelled for 2020, then there’s no shame in holding off your own event until next year either. Be patient, stay active on social media and think about free marketing channels like blogging until the time is right to start spending your ad budget.

Consider Taking Your Business Online

If there’s one final piece of advice we’d give to businesses looking to keep their heads above water during these crazy times, it would be this:

During the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, some businesses saw increases in web traffic of up to 150%. That means loyal customers are more than willing to keep shopping at their favorite stores despite the logistical issues.

If you have the ability to open an online store, do it already! If you’re in a B2B niche, consider offering free Skype consultations.

COVID-19 might have been the most unprecedented event in a generation, but with a little marketing savvy and the determination to succeed, you can also uncover some of the biggest money making opportunities of your lifetime!

4 Strategic Ideas of Types of Content to Post on Social Media Right Now

Today we’re going to be discussing the different types of content your business could post on their social media platforms. This can be things like a blog specifically for your company, it could be showing your companies expertise in the field. There could be posts showing what your company’s culture. Discussing the newest news and trends in your industry. Your company could post polls that will allow your customers to interact more directly with you. You could post review videos of software and products that are useful in your business field.

1.      Blog about Your Business: You can explore many different ideas and avenues through this medium, talk all about tips and tricks that will assist your customers in their endeavors.

2.      Posts about Company Culture: You can make posts about what your company’s culture is like. You can show what makes your company unique, what values is it based on? What is your slogan? Why? This gives consumers a more in depth look at their favorite business, it reminds them why they love it, and gives them even more of a reason to tell their friends and family about it.

3.      Discussing Current News & Events in Your Industry: This is a topic that you can post about frequently as businesses are forever evolving and changing at a constant rate. You can discuss the newest trends in social media, what is viral at the moment, what memes, what hashtags are popular, what challenges are going on, what age demographic is shifting toward using one particular social network over the other and why? These are all important questions to asks oneself, to be truly successful in the field of social media marketing.

4.      Posting Polls: Posting polls on your social media such as a twitter poll and/or an Instagram story poll is an awesome way to interact with your customers. Some examples of questions that you could potentially ask are what kinds of content would they like to see in the future? What’s their favorite movie genre? Who’s their favorite artist at the moment? These types of questions will help you to better understand your audience and tailor more content specific to their needs.

Well that about wraps it up for today’s blog post! We hope that this information will assist you in deciding on what types of topics to post on your company’s social media platforms!

Social Media Marketing & Digital Marketing Trends Happening Now

In today’s digital world, it is very easy to market your services or products. Internet has brought the entire community of customers and service providers very close to each other. With the adoption of the right type of technique and marketing strategy, it is simple to reach out your product to the masses and make some decent profit.

Digital Marketing

Currently, as we all know, people just cannot live without internet and related devices such as their laptops, smart phones and tablets. Digital marketing is nothing but putting these resources to use and making the most of it. As far as phones are concerned, engaging apps related to your business can keep the consumer hooked on your product. This is possible because through the app platform, they have the ability to communicate, give feedback and suggestions and thus keep the product in consideration at all times.

Digital marketing has many advantages. The product publicity is not limited to the local market but goes global and has a wider spectrum of business. People are constantly connected to the internet, as they are always using their phone or laptop, thus keeping track of new products, services and others is easy. If the advertisement of the product is done in an effective manner, then it reaches the audience instantly and they start responding to it by either purchasing the product or hiring the service.

An effective communication method is through blogs. People love to read blogs and if they are informative and engaging, then besides getting the necessary publicity, the blogs act as front runners for your product.

Social Media Marketing

As mentioned earlier, the internet has helped bridge the gap between sellers and consumers. People like to be connected with one another, even across the globe, through Social Media platforms. It is a very powerful means of voicing your opinion, announcing new products and services, giving feedbacks about the same and giving referrals.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn are some examples of social media platforms that have many loyal followers.

Creating a webpage to announce a service/product on Facebook is a common norm that people follow. The number of clicks and likes then ascertains the popularity and success of the advertising effort.  

However, one should understand that to keep the people’s interest alive, especially through YouTube videos, the matter needs to be updated occasionally and needs to be interesting and engaging. Videos uploaded on other social networking platforms also need to be entertaining to hold consumer’s interest.

Analytics tools help to establish the popularity of the post and gives guidelines for improvement and adjustments needed to increase the traffic to the site. Be precise in your goals and put them across effectively to the customers for a genuine response. Keep track of the competitors advertising activities as it aids in driving force in your self- promotional plans and get desirable results.

 Paid social campaigns to boost brand awareness is a good idea. This prompts more people to participate and take notice of what is in offing. Getting feedbacks and testimonials is another tactic to improve customer retention. Study the consumer’s temperament and build your posts, sites on their likes and choices. This guarantees that the audience supports the promotion and responds favorably.

Conclusion

Social Media Marketing and Digital Marketing are the trends of the current world we live in. If we have the ability to profit by their presence, then it is essential to understand and follow the protocol that go with establishing your presence through these two forms of media.   

4 Strategic Ideas of Types of Content to Post on Social Media

Today we’re going to be discussing the different types of content your business could post on their social media platforms. This can be things like a blog specifically for your company, it could be showing your companies expertise in the field. There could be posts showing what your company’s culture. Discussing the newest news and trends in your industry. Your company could post polls that will allow your customers to interact more directly with you. You could post review videos of software and products that are useful in your business field.

1.      Blog about Your Business: You can explore many different ideas and avenues through this medium, talk all about tips and tricks that will assist your customers in their endeavors.

2.      Posts about Company Culture: You can make posts about what your company’s culture is like. You can show what makes your company unique, what values is it based on? What is your slogan? Why? This gives consumers a more in depth look at their favorite business, it reminds them why they love it, and gives them even more of a reason to tell their friends and family about it.

3.      Discussing Current News & Events in Your Industry: This is a topic that you can post about frequently as businesses are forever evolving and changing at a constant rate. You can discuss the newest trends in social media, what is viral at the moment, what memes, what hashtags are popular, what challenges are going on, what age demographic is shifting toward using one particular social network over the other and why? These are all important questions to asks oneself, to be truly successful in the field of social media marketing.

4.      Posting Polls: Posting polls on your social media such as a twitter poll and/or an Instagram story poll is an awesome way to interact with your customers. Some examples of questions that you could potentially ask are what kinds of content would they like to see in the future? What’s their favorite movie genre? Who’s their favorite artist at the moment? These types of questions will help you to better understand your audience and tailor more content specific to their needs.

Well that about wraps it up for today’s blog post! We hope that this information will assist you in deciding on what types of topics to post on your company’s social media platforms!

2 Current Marketing Trends to Take Advantage of NOW

Trends are very important to your success as a social media marketer. You must keep up in the face of the super-fast paced digital landscape that we have become accustomed to in this day and age. If we fail to stay up to date with trends, we are leaving ourselves at risk of being left behind, or even worse losing out on the chance to further optimize our business to the best of our capabilities. The trends will we be going over today are lifecycle marketing and conversational marketing. These will all be vital to your company’s success.

1.      LIFECYCLE MARKETING: We need to pay more attention to the different stages our customers go through or lifecycles. We have the reach stage when we are first reaching out to them, whether that be through a social media channel, a YouTube video, a digital ad, an email marketing campaign, or even more traditional forms of media such as television, radio, or billboards. This is our first step is to grasp the customers attention. Stage 2 within the lifecycle would be to act on that attention we’ve grasped, now that we have their attention, we have to reel them into our website, which should be optimized for desktop and mobile usage, this is crucial, a poor website can drive customers away potentially losing out on a sale. Stage 3 is converting this curious consumer into a customer we can do that through encouraging them to sign up for our email newsletter through some type of incentive, this will allow us to continue onto the next step which is engaging with our customers, Stage 5. In this stage we will be focusing on creating customer loyalty, we will do this through our amazing product and or service, as well as our attentive customer service. This will assist us in creating further word of mouth opportunities.

2.      CONVERSATIONAL MARKETING: Is utilizing the smart speakers which are now very prevalent in westernized households all across the globe and picking up on keywords, to assist us in figuring out which products customers are most interested in buying, this will help us to further pinpoint specific demographics that will be most likely to want to buy our products and services. We must utilize the ever-advancing field of technology to our benefit, as it makes our jobs easier as markets and takes more and more of the guessing out of the equation, we now have a more precise approach we can take as opposed to the traditional buckshot approach that was common.

Well that’s all we have for you today folks I hope this information was informative and assists you in all of your future marketing endeavors!

5 Ideas to Utilize right now with your Social Media!

We’re all going through a lot right now!  In today’s blog post we will be discussing even MORE ways, yes MORE ways to post content on your company’s social media platform! We will be discussing topics such as event promotion, live videos, inspirational quotes, company accomplishments, ask for your customers feedback, and social media Q&A sessions!

1.      LIVE VIDEOS: Give us a live video where you give us a tour of your office/facility, show us your employees hard at work. You can show a product or service demonstration in real time. You can show your teams creative process, while inventing new products/services, their brainstorming, sketches, etc.

2.      INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES: Another great idea for content on your company’s social media is to post inspirational quotes that pertain to your business, whether these quotes are from your own imagination or from the minds of leaders in the field of business, this can be present leaders, or leaders from throughout history.

3.      COMPANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Post about breakthroughs that your company has made, what strides are you making in your field? This is a way to inspire others, and to spark word of mouth amongst your followers.

4.      ASK FOR CUSTOMER FEEDBACK: Stop guessing about what your customers prefer and what they like or dislike when you can find out by asking them directly!

5.      SOCIAL MEDIA Q&A SESSIONS: Last but not least, we have social media Q&A sessions, which can be extremely beneficial in allowing your followers to get to pick your brain and give them an insight into your company’s vision. This will increase transparency within your company, which is always welcomed by consumers.

That about wraps it up for today’s blog! As always, we hope that this information will be beneficial to you, and your company’s business endeavors!

Two Ways to Embrace Your Inner Marketer

Today we’re going to be discussing why you should become a marketer. Every day we are bombarded with advertisements, tweets, posts, memes, viral videos, billboards, commercials, infomercials, constantly within our view. Going after not only our conscious thoughts, but also our underlying subconscious thoughts. Being a marketing means being a master at the art of persuasion, a master at the art of appealing to your consumers emotions or logic. You will need to become adept in the art of influencing others. It is interesting to become a marketer because you give the products meaning, you create a story behind them, and make them worth having!

1.      Express Your Creativity: Becoming will allow you to express your creative side in many different ways, you get to create art for businesses, you to create videos for them that tell a story about their company, products and/or employees, you get to shoot beautiful photography for them displaying their products and services in all their glory, you’ll get to create infographics that are pleasing to the eye as well as the mind, you can create viral memes that use your product that will bring laughter to thousands as well as increase brand recall. There is a myriad of ways to get in touch with your inner creative as a marketer and that is one of the most rewarding things about this job.

2.      Being the Lifeblood of a Business: Marketing is without question one of the most important factors of running a business, you could have the greatest product in the world, but if no one knows about it then it isn’t going to sell! So how do you get it to sell? You market it of course! You find that target demographic that you know would love your product and you find out what appeals to them, what emotions influence them the most? Take Military ads for example, they want to make you feel proud of your country and armed forces, make you feel unique, and make you feel like you can be a leader who makes a difference by joining. Take Taco Bell for example they are always playing on humor as their main targeted emotion, always attempting to create satire, jokes about their newest items and deals, and it has proven to be very successful for their targeted demographic. All of these business create stories that appeal to their demographics, marketers are master story tellers and story is KING when it comes to business.

How to Build a Thriving Fan Base on Social Media During These Times

Today we’re going to discuss how to create a large and thriving fan base on ANY social media platform! We’re going to go over techniques and strategies to give you the highest chances of success possible. It will be up to you to put in the work. But we will give you the layout. We’re going to discuss things like consistency, transparency, building a brand image, along with your values, and color scheme.

1.      Keep it Consistent: Consistency is key to building a solid rapport with your fan base, keep a schedule on when you’ll be releasing your content and stick to it. For example, if you release food challenges, release one every Tuesday at 3 o’clock so your fans know when to tune into your social media channel, it gives them something to look forward to, and it creates a sense of anticipation. Your fans will thank you for this and will be able to tell others when they can tune in as well, a good example of this is the YouTube show “Hot One’s” which airs on a weekly schedule in-season.

2.      Keep it Transparent: Transparency is key when building a loyal fan base that will brag about you to everyone they know. You have to let them know if you haven’t been posting, why not? Or let them get a behind the scenes look behind your creative process, how do you come up with these stunning visuals, engaging stories, or hilarious videos? The people want to know! Being honest is always the best quality, do your best to assist your fans in whatever way you can.

3.      Building a Brand Image: When building a brand image, you need to think of what does YOUR targeted demographic relate with the most? What colors would really draw them in? As well as what colors really fit with the theme of your business, as each color conveys a different emotion, red: power, blue: calm, tranquility, purple: royalty, yellow: energy, happiness. Each unique with the power to display many different messages, and conjure up many different emotions within your fans, choose your colors wisely. We need to think about the brand values associated with your brand as well, what do you stand for? What impact are you looking to make on the lives of your fans, as well as the world at large.

Four Ways to use Social Media to Grow Your Business

While it's common knowledge that social media is used by billions of people around the world, what surprises many is the fact that every 6.4 seconds someone new is joining the craze. When used properly, sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can draw traffic to your website and increase the general public's knowledge of your brand. Here are a few tips that will help you to take charge of your web presence.

Establish your brand across several different sites

All platforms have different uses, so it's best to have accounts on multiple websites. Twitter is best for short blurbs of information and humor is often best received here. Facebook has the most users of all ages and is great for reaching a broader audience. Instagram is amazing if visual content such as pictures and videos will help get your message across. It's also great for reaching a younger audience. LinkedIn will help to showcase your company's values and is a great place to share more serious information and post job openings to qualified candidates. 

Use social media as it was intended

Social networks are designed for interaction between people. The biggest mistake you can make is having social accounts, posting on them regularly, and not engaging with people. Respond to comments, answer messages, and feel free to reach out to people who post about your business and ask for permission to repost their content. 71% of consumers who had a positive experience with a brand on social media say that they're likely to recommend them to family and friends. Interacting with users online can increase the amount of people that are exposed to your business and positive experiences can up the number of repeat customers. 

Focus on quality over quantity

All too often people believe that posting frequently on their profile is the way to success. This can actually annoy your followers or connections and cause people to mute you or, even worse, unfollow you altogether. The best way to handle posting is to only do so when you have quality content you'd like to share; information should draw users in, teach them something new about your company, inform them about upcoming sales and events or new products, or at the very least be memorable. Filler content, especially on platforms like Instagram, can dampen people's understanding of your brand and discourage new people from following you. 

Social media can be a useful tool if used correctly

Social sites are used by billions of people with new users joining every day. Posting content on several different sites increases your visibility and allows you to reach people in different ways. It's important to engage with your followers in a meaningful way and ensure they have a positive experience. Creating quality content instead of posting simply to post will draw new followers and keep existing ones. Having a successful online presence can greatly impact your business and following these tips ensures it's in a positive way.

Three Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)

Social media is everything today. We live in a world where almost everyone has at least one or two social media profiles. Many businesses have their own profiles too!

However, social media marketing is more than just starting a page for your business and posting here and there. In fact, many small business owners make mistakes when using social media to market their business. Here are some of the most common ones that are made.

Mistake Number One: Avoiding social media.

Business owners that avoid social media are losing out on a large number of potential customers. Most people have at least one social media account that they check regularly. Many have more than one.

If you want to grow your business, it needs to be found on social media!

How to Avoid It

You just need to get started on social media. Start small with one platform (Facebook or Twitter) and give it a try. Once you start posting regularly and building up a following, you will be amazed by how many people find you through social media.

Mistake Number Two: Using only one platform.

Many business owners don't understand the importance of using multiple platforms. This helps them to reach as many potential customers as possible.

You are going to notice that some of your customers spend time on Facebook, while others prefer Twitter or Instagram. If you aren't on multiple social media sites, you may be missing out. The more places that you are, the more people you could potentially reach.

How to Avoid It

You need to use as many types of marketing and advertising as you can, even if this means that you need to get help. Your business won't be found if you don't put yourself out there (in multiple places)! 

Mistake Number Three: Trying too hard.

Many business owners crash and burn. They think that they have to join every social media site. However, the business owners that try to do too much too fast burn out and quickly let things slide. They may start out with lots of ideas, but then they can't keep up, so they just stop marketing altogether.

How to Avoid It

Start slowly. Try one thing at a time. Once you get the hang of it, you can add more to your plate. Start with one social media profile. Once you are comfortable using that, you may want to add another.

While many business owners avoid social media altogether, others crash and burn. They try to join every site that they can think of and find out that they can't keep up with them all. The best thing that you can do is to start small and build up.  If you are struggling, don't hesitate to get help.

Contact us for all of your marketing needs.