4 Costless Inbound Marketing Ideas You Should Try in 2018

Are you just getting started with inbound marketing? Have you been doing inbound marketing for sometimes now? How long do you think it should take one before they start seeing results? If you are getting started with inbound marketing, you will definitely find it very challenging. Many marketers wonder how much it could cost to regularly generate content, improve social media outreach and all aspects of inbound marketing.

The good news is that there are countless ways you can increase your inbound marketing activities without having to break the bank. In other words, the basics are not out of your reach. From writing your own content to utilizing thousands of available website tools to help you reach your potential customers, here are 10 no-cost inbound marketing ideas you can try.

  1. Create high quality free content

Publishing high quality content remains the key to successful inbound marketing. If you want to attract customers to your website, you must publish high quality, valuable content. Content can be in the form of blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, white papers or tweets, among others.

At the very least, dedicate a few minutes of your time to create well-written content that is relevant and useful to your audience. of course if you are unable to produce the content yourself, you can contract a marketing agency or freelance content producers to help you publish the right content that will not only be right for the search engines but also one that your users will love.

  1. Create a loyalty program

You can develop a simple strategic partnership with your prospects through loyalty programs. A good example is B2B referral software known as Advocate Hub. This software allows users to build a loyalty program so that the firm can trigger customer enthusiasm and boost referrals of qualified leads.

Loyalty programs are done by incentivizing partners, customers and employees so that they become brand ambassadors of your target audience. Incentives can range from discounts to reward for content created such as guest posts and online reviews and testimonials.

  1. Use social media networks

Social media networks have become the cornerstone of inbound marketing, thanks to their global outreach. Social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Google­­++ can be used to promote and share content, products as well as special offers. Social media also allows you to not only interact with your customers, but also create brand loyalty.

Remember to keep track of your social media interactions both on your website and on your social media profiles/fan page.

  1. Lead nurturing

Lead nurturing is the process of ensuring that your prospects are ready to buy before directing them to your sales team. Sometimes your sales department can waste valuable time and resources on leads that are not qualified. Here are some tips on how to ensure successful lead nurturing:

  • Ensure the timing is right: do not rush your prospects such that you start bombarding them with your sales emails soon after they hit the subscribe button or like your page. It is important to take your time to bring them closer to wanting to open their wallets
  • Constantly and consistently refine your messaging: know the kind of information your prospect wants to hear based on the data you have collected. By ensuring that you keep giving them the right and relevant information, you will be building rapport and trust with your customers.
  • What do you want to give them? State what you want to provide them and what they stand to gain from your offer.
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Marketing Buzzwords You Should Know

Many marketers think of marketing buzzwords as some over-used, obnoxious industry jargon that means absolutely nothing. But maybe it is time we go back to the basics. Maybe it is time we re-educate ourselves on the true meaning of some marketing terms. So what are the marketing buzzwords we should be focusing on this year?

• Pragmatic TV marketing

It is a fact that most customers don’t wait to watch a TV episode when it first airs on TV, thanks to streaming servers that make it possible to watch shows on-demand at any time that is convenient to the viewers. For instance, if you miss marketing to people who watch “The legend of the Seeker” on ABC, you can still market to those who decide to watch it online on Hulu. Smart marketers are now using the guerrilla approach to reach customers on TV, YouTube, and other streaming channels. Companies Like Media Design Group uses that approach to design individual customer profiles using available data. This is what makes it possible for these kinds of businesses to reach millions of customers through personalized ads systems wherever they are.

• Local Search Marketing

Local search marketing refers to the process of optimizing your content for local search. In other words, you can target the local market by optimizing your digital properties to generate traffic from very specific locations/countries/towns/regions. Thus, it is safe to say Local search marketing is the foundational digital marketing strategy for local businesses. Your local customers can find you based on the information they get from search engines.

• Analytics

Analytics is a fancy word for analysis of data. Whoever you are running some marketing campaigns, it is important to look at the data, analyze it, and make conclusions. 

Simply put, analytics is the marketing dashboard to help you track your numbers and find out what areas need improvement. 

• Conversions

When a customer takes action such as making a subscription, opting into your marketing list, downloading, purchasing, or sharing your content, we say the customer has converted. Conversions can thus be viewed as some sort of interactions between the customer and your business. 

• Influencer marketing

It has been found that nearly 84% of marketers have lined up at least one influencer campaign in the coming year. Influencer marketing involves the process of using influential members of society to market your products and services. For instance, you can find influential users on Social Media who can help deliver your marketing messages. Influential users can significantly influence consumers to trust your brand. 

• User-generated content marketing

Smart marketers also understand the power of user-generated marketing. User-generated content is normally content that is generated by the users, and in most cases, it is not solicited or paid for by the company. Many consumers have come to trust user-generated content because it comes from other users who might share vital experiences. In other words, user-generated content seems more authentic because it is not coming from marketing experts. Another advantage of user-generated content is that there are no risks involved in terms of cost if it doesn’t produce the desired results. Mjrvisuals company has its own thoughts, engage your business marketing through video content with video production and design when you need it.

• Referral marketing

Did you know that people are four times more likely to make a purchase if a friend recommends the product or service? Referral marketing can also be called word-of-mouth marketing and utilizes the power of personal recommendations to build trust and bring in new businesses. The key to having referral marketing work is by having loyal customers who are willing to act as your brand ambassador.


Emotional Branding and How to Build a Lasting Memory in Your Customer’s Mind

Emotional branding is defined as the successful attachment of a specific emotion to a brand.

At one of the Business Marketing Association (BMA) conferences in Chicago, Jay Baer asked a room full of roughly 1,000 B2B marketers, “Are you more interesting than my wife?”

Can you think of the people you have had an emotional connection with in your life? How did they impact on your life? Now think about the brands and see the common threats among them.

It is true for brands as it is for people: to break through in modern marketing, small business owners in Australia need to be more interesting and relevant in the moment.

Brands need to connect with people in the way a close friend would—through emotion—in order to build, long-lasting, and quality relationships. There are huge opportunities for retail stores to take advantage of emotional branding.

According to one research, smell is powerful when it comes to persuading someone to buy a product. Stores using certain scents in their stores have been found to have a 30% increase in sales.

A study by University of Wollongong and Murdoch University in 2012, emotional branding is becoming widely used globally. According to Dr Steve Bellman of Murdoch University’s Audience Labs, marketers are tapping into customer’s feelings to market their brands. Another study shows men who show love for their brand beer purchase 38% more beer than the average.

Therefore, emotional branding can lead to substantially more sales without companies having to rely on discounts and promotions. On the flip side, however, creating that emotional connection can be a difficult task.

How brands can connect emotionally

  • By telling a story that inspires an emotional connection: according to Beth Comstock, General Electric Chief Marketing Officer, you can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything. Every brand has stories to tell.

Example: look at this video by Google. In it, you well sense deep emotional connection with the product.

  • By allow their audience to be the real heroes: imagine who emotionally connected your brand would be by showcasing how your product has changed lives. Simply give your audience a voice, a platform and face to be heard.

 

  • By being authentic:don’t be afraid to embrace your inner geek. Remain who you are and don’t try to be like who you are not. At Bizify, we try to remain true to ourselves. We try to help startups find their feet and we intend to remain true to that mission.

 

  • By embracing the opportunity to surprise and delight: surprising and delighting customers can be an effecting marketing strategy. Use social media and mobile to spark moments of happiness in customers and you will be surprised at its effectiveness. Coca-Cola has really perfected this art.

Other Important Branding Tips

  1. Creating an irresistible value proposition

A value proposition is a statement that explains what value you provide to your customers and how you do it uniquely. Establishing a substantive value proposition is critical if you want to stand above the crowd. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs loose out because they fail to articulate a unique value proposition.

Be clear on what your business stands for. What is your promise? How will you put out a consistent and passionate messages that attract the right candidate? This will also help you to hire the right people and develop products and services that are aligned with your unique value proposition.

  1. Be careful with launching too many brands

The big problem for many businesses is they think more brands will make them more successful but they have neither the architecture nor the capacity to manage a multiplicity of brands well. Businesses can increase profits by deleting none-performing brands.  Even though revenue may fall in the process, reducing the number of brands will be beneficial in the long run.

Multi band strategies are likely to suffer from dis-economies of scale because of the hidden costs. By letting go off weak, declining and marginally profitable brands, you will be freeing resources to make your few remaining brands better and more attractive to customers.  Thus, killing some brands in your portfolio may sometimes be the best way for your business to serve the customers.

  1. Package your products

Packaging is an important element when it comes to marketing. How you package your products can attract or repel customers. Is your packaging visually attractive through shape, color, design and does it communicate the right brand ideals. If not, it might be time to revamp the way you package your products.

  1. Create a slogan

Let us consider Apple for example. As they became big, they adopted the tagline “Think Different.” This was a perfect fit for their marketing strategy because a large portion of their customers didn’t want to use PC’s like everybody else. Choose a slogan that is consistent with your brand and fits your market slogan.

Take care of your staff

You need to build your reputation to attract the right staff and customers. So treat your staff well because they are one of the most important people in your business. Ex-employees are important for leads and new business. Also, reward them for not only making sales, but for being great ambassadors for your business.

 


How do you Create Marketing Emails that Will Generate Instant YES?

 

When a well-crafted email hits your inbox, you open and act on it because it grabs your attention.  These emails might look simple and natural.  Achieving a clear, balanced and persuasive message takes time and effort, but it is worth it. In order to create an email that will generate positive results (people clicking your Call to Action), here are steps that need to be taken into consideration. Think of these steps as a logical staircase where you need to move from one step to another.

  • Make your messages consistent and persuasive

 Human beings like consistency. It is hard-wired in our brains. For example, once someone decides to do something, they would strive to make all future behavior to match past behavior. If there is a mismatch, the person immediately begins to feel that something has gone amiss somewhere. It is the same with the emails you receive.

 An email campaign should have a consistent message to elicit an action. Emails that have a consistent and persuasive message always outperform those that don’t. A consistent and persuasive email should lead one to take an action. 

An inconsistent message is one whose parts don’t add up, i.e. they offer contradictory information.

Example

Suppose that your email is something like “Unbeatable Discount on iPhone 6 this Week”, yet the headlines says, “20% off on all smartphones,” with many types of smartphones being presented.

Although the email may not be factually wrong, it is inconsistent and you are likely to lose some customers. Your message will be more successful if all the components agree.

  • Use high quality and relevant images

Use images that are not only relevant to the offer, but also high quality and original. Showing stock images is an instant click-killer. Make sure your images supports the main messages and that they reappear on your landing page—the page your customer will land after clicking the Call to Action button. This will make people feel that they have landed on the right page.

  • Have a great presentation layer

Treat your promotional email like a shopping window. The more inviting the presentation, the more likely people will want to enter your shop. Just having a great product is not enough to make people want to buy from you or sign up for your services. Having an inviting presentation layer in your email will grab the attention of your subscribers.

  1. Precision Targeting is Indispensable: Target the right audience

In theory, it would seem like sending an email to everybody will increase your sales, but that is not what expert marketers do. When it comes to sending email campaigns, targeting the right audience is very important. According to Marketing Sherpa, sending an email to untargeted database is counterproductive. Unfortunately, many small business owners do this all the time.

Collecting email list and blasting everyone that is on that list with an email campaign is akin to shooting in the dark, and it is a bad habit that you need to stop immediately. Why would you want males on your list to receive email offers about "fashionable bras" that you recently launched? Wouldn't that be shooting yourself in the foot?

Highly targeted email campaigns experience 208% higher conversion rates compared to the “batch and blast” emails. As a marketer, you need to rise above the mediocrity and segment your list. Optimized email marketing pays off big time. Marketers that use email segmentation record a higher ROI compared to aimless emails. Moreover, email segmentation drastically reduces opt-outs.

Here are the steps to take if you want to send targeted email campaigns:

  • Target a high-value segment

Now that you have an email subscriber list, it is time to separate the wheat from the chaff. A good way to find valuable segment from the list is to look at your list bearing three factors in mind:

  • How recent is the subscriber? Subscribers who have done business with you recently are more likely to respond to your email campaign.
  • How often does the subscriber buy? Subscribers who purchase from your more frequently are more likely to respond than others.
  • How much does the subscriber spend? Subscribers that have spent 50% more than your average subscribers are more likely to respond to your emails.

This is not the be-all and end-all email segmentation check list, but it is a good starting point.

  • Target using demographics

If possible, divide your list into specific groups to enable you send personalized, targeted and relevant messages. Without further ado, here are five main demographic features you can use to segment your list:

  • Geographical locations: if you are serving cross-border markets, dividing your list according to geographical location will make it easier for you to send emails at the right time. This will also ensure you don’t break respective laws and regulations.
  • Age: you might have offers targeting different age groups, which means that you can target millennials/college students, baby boomers, little kids and retirees, among others.
  • Gender: just as you might want to specifically speak to a college student or retiree, you might want to customize your offers and messaging based on gender.
  • Industry: if you have lists that cut across several industries, it is prudent to segment your list based on industry to add another level of personalization.
  • Persona: you should study your subscribers and understand them. Know what makes each of them tick and design email messaging around their persona.

Offering exclusive email content to target audiences allows you to offer exact solutions that solve specific needs/dilemmas and supports conversations that will drive your conversation rates and increase your ROI.

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach and engage with your customers. However, in the absence of effective email marketing strategy, you might not achieve your marketing goals.

Mjrvisuals  can help you increase your reach out of that content through our expertise. We run the gambit of visual imagination including video production, digital marketing, video editing, print design, advertising, graphic design, graphic animation, motion graphic and media design. Be part of our portfolio of clients and let us tell your story to the world. Click here to visit our website: mjrvisuals.com/