Invest in Good Content

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Dachary

Social media marketing, like Twitter, Facebook and Google+, are the new hotness. They’ve been getting more and more attention in marketing efforts, and there’s no question that these platforms give businesses new opportunities to engage their clients. But we’ve established before that the best social media marketing is useless if you don’t have a decent website for clients to find; and the same thing goes for content. Invest in good content to form the core of your marketing platform, and that can also give you talking points for your social media campaigns.

Social Media Does Not Stand Alone

One thing that many businesses today don’t realize when they start a social media marketing campaign is that social media does not stand alone. You can use it to interact with your clients, but you still need other, content-based points of contact. Social media campaigns can be a great supplement for email marketing campaigns, routine blog posts, press releases and other content relative to your business. But using social media to the exclusion of these other marketing tools will cost you money and business. The right marketing plan features a combination of channels.

Good Content Makes Your Website More Visible

Good content makes your website more visible. You can Tweet about your content; you can link to it on Facebook and Google+. If it’s really good, other people will link to it and share it with their friends. That’s how things go viral. But all the social media efforts in the world are futile if you don’t have good content that people *want* to read and share.

Boost Your Search Engine Results

SEO is a constantly-evolving field. The SEO practices of a few years ago, such as keyword stuffing and link-farming, won’t get you anywhere today – and can even get your site blacklisted. Instead, search engines today are looking for content relative to your business that naturally ranks for certain keywords. Good content writers have been practicing organic SEO all along, and that’s now what search engines are looking for.

Adding content on a regular basis boosts your search engine rankings. It expands the potential keyword basis that users can use to find your site. And good, high-quality content will get linked to by people who want to share it – increasing your site’s authority and boosting your search engine results. Good content is the new SEO hotness.

Consider Your Content an Investment

I see more and more businesses looking to churn out cheap content for something like $1 to $3 per 500-word article. For that price, what you’re most likely to get is something cut-and-pasted from somewhere else. You might get articles spun using article spinning software, but they won’t read naturally and probably won’t offer anything to readers. I have two words for businesses looking to go the cheap route: don’t bother. You won’t boost your site ranking or attract users with crappy content, and you can get your site blacklisted from Google for duplicating content.

Instead, think of your content as an investment. If you spend more money up front for high-quality, original content – you’ll organically boost your search engine results, give users a reason to stick around your site and share your content, and establish your authority in your field. This is an argument I’ve been making in favor of high-quality content for years; but the search ranking algorithms are finally catching up with me.

Think of the money you spend on good content as an investment for your business – and watch the dividends pile up as you expand your customer base and increase your sales.

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13 Online Marketing Avenues to Boost Your Business Profile

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Dachary

Online marketing has really exploded, and businesses now have a variety of methods to reach out to their potential clients. Over a dozen online marketing avenues roll off the tongue, and this is by no means an exhaustive list: the opportunities are endless, and limited only by creativity and resources. That being said, these are some of the most common online marketing avenues; learn to leverage them effectively, and you can dramatically expand your reach, capture a significantly wider audience and boost your conversion rate.

1. Email

Email marketing has been around for a long time, and many businesses now eschew it as old news. It may not be new or exciting, but it remains one of the most effective forms of contact. Effective email campaigns to opt-in email addresses continue to produce higher conversation rates than any other marketing technique. All you need to do is give people a good reason to opt-in, create effective messages that target your audience and send them out at the appropriate intervals.

2. Social Media

Social media was the new hotness a year or two ago, but now it’s become an accepted part of many businesses’ online presence. If you’re a major player, it’s surprising to find that you don’t have a Twitter account or Facebook page, and more and more businesses are now adding Google+ and LinkedIn, too. Effectively utilizing social media can be a great tool for drastically expanding your scope. But social media requires a lot of up-front time investment, and the return on the investment for most businesses is not proportional to the resources that go into this marketing avenue. This is one of those things that you should maintain because clients expect you to, but in general you’ll find more bang for your marketing buck elsewhere.

3. Article Marketing

Article marketing involves submitting articles relative to your field of expertise to article directory websites. Popular article marketing sites include eZine Articles, Hub Pages, Squidoo – more than a hundred article directories exist, some of which have a unique style and flare, and others are little more than link-building directories. Article marketing can provide you with inbound links and improve your SEO. However, avoid spamming article marketing sites, as Google frowns upon duplicate content. If your article shows up in a hundred different places, your article marketing efforts can actually hurt your website’s reputation.

4. Press Release Marketing

Press release marketing functions much like article marketing. You can submit your press release to one of many press release directory services, or submit it directly to various news services. In an ideal world, a major news service will take your press release and run with it, providing you exposure to thousands of new viewers. But doing press release marketing right takes an experienced professional; too many press releases read like an ad for the company, and don’t get picked up by news services.

5. Landing Pages

A landing page, or lead capture page, is designed to get your audience to take some action; typically to sign up for an email campaign or create an account. A landing page should always have a clear call to action, and many businesses customize a landing page for a specific traffic source – making it easy to see which traffic source results in the largest number of people responding to your call to action, and also making the landing page more effective because it’s tailored to a specific source and audience.

6. SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of taking a website and optimizing it to rank highly in specifically-tailored search results. SEO may include internal HTML and code tweaks, content changes designed to target specific keywords, and website structure changes. Effective SEO boosts the page rank of your site for certain keywords, and makes it easier for your customers to find you in a Web search.

7. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a type of internet marketing designed to increase traffic as a result of paid search engine placement. SEM techniques may include contextual advertising, paid placement and paid inclusion. SEM for a niche site may be relatively inexpensive and effective, but it’s difficult to compete in SEM for popular, high-demand keywords.

8. Inbound Linking

Inbound linking is an online marketing technique that has a couple of benefits; effective inbound linking can increase your page rank, and it also makes it easier for your customers to find you. Inbound linking can be achieved in a variety of ways; through posting responses in forums related to your product or service; through paid inbound linking services and through things like guest blogging and other exchange-type interactions. It’s important to keep in mind that if you pay for an inbound linking service, the wrong link-building program can hurt your page results, and even get you banned from Google; we’ll explore this further when we talk about Black Hat marketing techniques a bit later.

9. Affiliate, Reseller and Associate Programs

These programs are designed to incentivize the promotion of your site or services. Reseller programs make it easy for people to sell your products for you in return for a cut, while affiliate and associate programs incentivize people to drive traffic to your site. These programs are underutilized in online marketing, and have substantial benefits to the right business models.

10. Contests and Giveaways

Contests and giveaways are a great way to spread the word about your company and drastically increase your potential audience in a short time. Targeted contests and giveaways, such as gift cards for your business or products that you sell, can generate a smaller pool of well-qualified leads, while more generalized contests and giveaways, like iPad giveaways, can help you expand your reach but fewer of the leads will be qualified.

11. Blogging

Blogging is a great way to build an online presence, establish authority and credibility, and expand your SEO. But blogging tends to yield slow results, and it can take months of steady blogging before you gain traction. Generally, scheduled, routine blogging forms the backbone for SEO; it’s an integral part of a marketing plan but doesn’t necessarily yield high conversion from the blog itself. Unusual or highly controversial blog posts, however, have the opportunity to be picked up and shared on sites like reddit that can get your content in front of thousands, tens of thousands or even millions of viewers.

12. Video Marketing

Video marketing, when done well, can be extremely effective. Video is the most socially-shared content on the Web, and video marketing can dramatically increase your reach and audience. If a video goes viral, you could be looking at hundreds of thousands or even millions of hits in a matter of days. Poor video marketing, though, doesn’t contribute to your reach, and can actually hurt your business.

13. Podcasting

Podcasting is another avenue you can use to reach out to your potential audience. Like blogging, podcasting provides you an opportunity to establish authority and credibility, and can help draw potential audience members. But podcasting represents a significant time investment, and should only be undertaken under certain business models and with very clearly defined goals and scope.

Ultimately, these tools can help any business reach a wider audience, and should form the core of your marketing platform. The right combination of tools in the right proportions varies depending on your business, but an experienced marketing professional can help you explore which tools are right for you.

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The Client Intake Marketing Worksheet

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Dachary

When I take on new clients, one of the first things I do is get to know their company, their products or services and their goals. Many of the companies that contact me don’t know exactly what they want or need, and rely on me to help guide them. I work with many small businesses who haven’t really thought much about marketing and haven’t begun to contemplate a marketing plan. If a company hasn’t yet determined their marketing goals, I ask them a few targeted questions from my Client Intake Marketing Worksheet:

Who is your target audience or key demographic?

One of the first steps a company should should take when thinking about marketing is to identify the target audience or key demographic. Who would use your product? Who would want to use your product? Who wouldn’t think about using your product, but would find it helpful or enjoyable if they did?

Many companies work with multiple demographics, and it’s important to target each demographic with an effective marketing campaign. When you try to “catch all” with a more generalized marketing plan, you can’t make as much impact because you can’t be as specific as you would with a targeted demographic.

You may also speak to a different demographic with each product or service you provide. In this case, you’d need to identify each demographic individually per product and service so you can create an appropriate marketing plan.

How do you intend to reach your target audience?

Some businesses have a strong idea of what they want when they come to me. For example, a business might want SEO copy for its website in order to reach its target audience via search engine results. But many haven’t thought about the avenues they can use to reach their target audiences. For example, video game players may read gaming magazines, frequent video gaming forums, visit video game shops and follow video game reviewers on social media, so all of these places can become ways to reach video game players.

By identifying where your target demographic spends its time, you can pinpoint key avenues to reach this audience that are more targeted and specific, and typically more effective. You get better bang for your advertising buck by identifying key channels to reach your demographic and utilizing them effectively with a targeted marketing campaign.

How does your product or service differ from competitors?

It’s important to identify how your product or service differs from competitors so you can determine what gives you an edge with your audience. Key differentiation points are often your selling points; you just need to identify them and convey to your clients why these differentiating elements are desirable. Does your product offer an easier-to-use interface than competitors? Does it provide services that the competitors don’t offer? Is it stronger, faster, louder – better? Find the elements that differentiate you, and think of ways to make those elements must-have with your key demographic.

Who are your direct competitors?

When I’m learning about a new client, I like to know who their direct competitors are so I can take a look at them. I compare products, services, marketing materials and Web copy to identify key selling points, what the competitors do well, what they do poorly and how my client can stand out. In most cases, you don’t want to be a clone of the competitors; you want to emulate the elements that they do well, avoid the mistakes they make and find a way to make your product, service or company unique.

In a couple of short, simple sentences, what would you want your clients to know about your company?

This is the elevator pitch; if you only had 10 seconds to let your customers know the most important things about your company, what would they be? These are the elements you want to work into your marketing materials. These are the elements that make your company stand out. Maybe you’re proud of your values, or your service levels. Maybe you’ve got a product that no-one else can produce. Maybe you’ve served more people than anyone else, or maybe you charge less or produce a high-quality line of items.

Think about the most important things you want your clients to know when they read your marketing materials, and make sure that gets mentioned early and often.

These are just a few of the basic questions you should ask yourself when you’re thinking about starting a marketing campaign. Later this week, we’ll take a look at specific marketing avenus, and give you a quick list of pros and cons for each.

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Must-Have Elements of a Good Website

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Dachary

Websites range from simple, one-page landing pages to gigantic, many-paged sites, depending on the size of your business and your desired Web presence. But every business SHOULD have a website; your clients will go looking for you at some point, and if you’re not there, you’ll miss out. Your website will also form the backbone of any online marketing campaign, and should be featured in offline marketing, too. What are the basic, must-have elements of a good website?

Home Page

Every website needs a great home page. Your home page should quickly and easily convey to your clients what your company does or offers. It also helps if your home page gives them an idea of what your website provides; be it just info, or a chance to purchase products or services. If you have a sales-oriented business, your home page should contain one or more calls to action. A way to capture customer data is also a great feature on a home page. Many businesses now prominently feature links to their social media presence on their home pages, too.

About Page

The About page should tell your clients about your company. When was it founded, how many employees, your company mission, any special credentials you boast – give your clients an opportunity to get to know you. This is also a great page to differentiate yourself from your competitors by highlighting relevant education areas, experiences or other unique factors that demonstrate to your customers why they should choose you.

Contact Page

A contact page providing all the methods to contact your company is vital to a good website. Provide phone number, fax number, email addresses, physical addresses – whatever contact information you want your customers to have. If you’ve got a store or physical location, make sure to list the address, and driving instructions or a link to Google Maps can be a nice touch. List hours of operation, any special contact information your customers should have to reach a particular department, etc. – and possibly a form for contacting you via the site.

Make it as easy and painless as possible for your customers to reach you, or else you WILL lose sales. Making this information easy to access also demonstrates a willingness to interface with your clients, making you seem more reputable and open to contact with your customers.

Products or Services Pages

If your business offers products or services, your website should contain pages talking about these services. Website design is extremely diverse, so there are a number of ways to handle your product or service descriptions. If you offer multiple products or services, and you want your website to help sell, describe each of them fully. If you just want your website to serve as a Web presence, it’s ok to simply list products and services and hope for customer contact – but generally, the more information a customer has, the better.

Design for Readability and Ease of Navigation

Readability and ease of navigation are VITAL factors when you’re designing a website. Some companies favor unique designs that the client will find eye-catching or memorable, but the craziest designs are often difficult to navigate or hard to read. Make sure the relevant content is in an easy-to-read font and color on an easy-to-read background. You WANT your customers to get information from your page. You WANT them to stick around and read it. You won’t get that if customers can’t read your page in the first place, or if they can’t figure out where to click to get where they want to go.

There’s a lot more to say about what goes into a good website design – both in terms of content and the design itself. But it’s easier to discuss on a one-on-one basis, so feel free to contact me if you have questions or want a review of your site!

Next week, I’m going to share with you one of my client intake marketing worksheets, so you can start to think about your marketing plan. This worksheet includes some questions you’ll need to answer before you hire a professional to help you, or if you intend to do the marketing yourself.

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Kick Off 2012 with a New Marketing Campaign!

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Dachary

The economy remains challenging, and many small businesses are struggling. One of the single biggest reasons that small businesses fail is that they don’t effectively penetrate their target market. You can have the best product or service in the world, but it’s useless if you can’t get it in front of your key demographic.

Unfortunately, marketing is one of the areas in which many businesses “cut back” when money is tight. Businesses rationalize that they just don’t have hundreds – or thousands – of dollars to spend on the website, on social media or on any sort of marketing campaign. But when businesses cut back on marketing, they’re ultimately hurting their bottom line. Fail to reach your customers, and you won’t sell anything.

What kind of marketing campaign is right for your business? Different products and services benefit from different marketing techniques. Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at the various marketing options and how to determine whether they might be right for your business.

At the core, though, every business in this day and age needs a good, easy-to-navigate, search-engine-optimized website. Websites lend legitimacy to your business, and make it easy for people to find more details about your company. With today’s profligate use of the Web, your business card should have a link to your website – your email signature should have a link to your website – in some cases, even your voicemail should give people your website URL. So if you’re starting off on a brand new marketing campaign, make sure you’ve got a good website to form the backbone for your online presence.

Don’t kid yourself. People check for you online. If your business isn’t well-represented on your own site, you’re going to lose sales. Period.

Later this week, we’ll take a look at what makes a good website, and next week we’ll give you a checklist for sitting down and thinking about your marketing needs.

In the meantime, if you need marketing help, help with a website copy or other writing-related tasks – drop me a line! I’ve got some openings going into 2012 so I’m happy to discuss work with new clients. Let me help you boost your business success!

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SEO Beats PPC and Social Media for Generating Leads

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Dachary

The 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report details the results of a survey conducted by Webmarketing123 in September. Through the course of the survey, over 500 marketing professionals discussed their objectives, lead generation methods, social media engagement and PPC strategies. One striking statistic that came from this report was the fact that SEO beats PPC and social media for generating leads! How did this break down?

Both B2B and B2C Marketers Agree that SEO has the Biggest Impact on Lead Generation
A conclusive 57 percent of B2B marketers report that SEO is their primary source for generating leads, beating out PPC (24 percent) and Social Media Marketing (18 percent).

Among B2C professionals, 41 percent report that SEO generates the most leads for them, versus PPC (34 percent) and Social Media Marketing (24 percent).

How Do You Allocate Your Marketing Budget?
In spite of the fact that SEO generates the most leads, both B2B and B2C professionals report that SEO doesn’t get a proportional slice of the marketing pie. In B2B marketing, SEO gets a reported 33 percent of the marketing budget, and PPC receives nearly 28 percent of the marketing budget – which seems inconsistent with the importance of SEO versus PPC in lead generation. In B2C marketing, PPC reports the highest marketing allocation at nearly 43 percent, while SEO only gets 22 percent of the marketing budget.

Are You Utilizing SEO?
Whether you’re a B2B or B2C business, the data seems conclusive: SEO generates more leads than PPC or social media – in some cases, combined. If you aren’t utilizing SEO marketing techniques, you’re missing out on potential leads. For 2012, consider reallocating some of your marketing budget to improving your SEO marketing, and see whether you can capitalize on the value of SEO in lead generation.

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