Why Online Marketing is Essential for Your Business
Online Marketing is Essential for Your Business
Are you thinking that the business world has become so competitive that it has almost reached the limit of competition? The bad news is that it is not about to. You are still going to witness more rival business set-ups opening operations and more websites designed to sell the product you are selling being created. Just imagine that whatever line of business you are; whatever industry you are in, there are thousands, sometimes millions of others offering the same product as you are. What do you think will make a customer to choose you over others offering the same services or products? In this century, it is suicidal for any business owner not to have an online presence. It is part of the strategies of remaining relevant and being competitive, as well as attracting new customers, globally.
Why Being Online Matters
It doesn't matter whether you have been in business for the last five decades or you are just starting out. The internet has actually leveled the playing ground for both the big boys and the small fish; in other words, when a customer is looking for a product online, it doesn't matter who is selling the product. What matters is whether the customer is able to find your site and can trust you. Essentially, those businesses which are not yet online are in for a big trouble because sooner than later, they will be out of business if at all they aren't already.
You need to get noticed through Search Engine Optimization
If you are online, the biggest headache is getting noticed. You cannot afford to be ignored if you want to make a fortune online. As they say, creating a website is the easiest part-the hardest part is pushing your site as far up the search engines as possible. Remember, for very niche, there are millions of other individuals, and businesses who are scrambling to get noticed in the search engines.
That is why you need a professional marketing company to help you reach your potential customers. Search Engine Optimization companies are doing a wonderful job to assist businesses undercut competition by pushing their sites up the search engines. Otherwise, if you just create a site and sit back and relax, you are not going to see substantial number of unique page views from your site. Does this explain why many people who created blogs and website with anticipation of carrying home a fat AdSense check are left disappointed?
Optimizing your site isn't a simple-one-day-event as some optimists think. It requires skills, dedication, professionalism and patience for you to succeed at it. Therefore, it is important that you get a professional SEO company to pull your site out of the murk and make it recognizable in the local or global search engines. It is time to let a SEO expert company perform search engine optimization for you as you concentrate on your core business.
Of course there are many other marketing strategies you can apply to grab the attention of the potential customers such as social media, email marketing, pay per click marketing, among others. For optimum results, you ought to apply all the available marketing strategies, depending on where your target customer base is located.
Quick Website, social media and Blog Marketing Tips
One of the easiest ways to grow your social media community the whole day is to post consistently. Studies show that different audiences react to different posting frequencies, so you need to make sure that you have tested the optimal frequency with your own audience and look at the engagement levels in comparison with your other audience. The minimum post frequency on Facebook should be once a day and 4-6 times a day on Twitter. Also be mindful of the time of the day you post to increase engagement. You can automate the process by using tools like Buffer and Sway.
Use Images When Posting to Facebook
Including photos in your Facebook and Twitter posts will generate more engagement. According to various studies, posts with relevant images generate 50% more likes than the average text post. When you want to post about an offer or an announcement, include an image. This will significantly increase click-through rates.
Increase Exposure of your Communities With Social Buttons
Embed social media share buttons within your site and within your marketing communication to increase engagement. Does your blog have social sharing button displayed prominently within the posts to encourage leaders to share the article. Some of the places you need to consider include:
- Footer of the website or blog
- Header of the website or blog
- In your newsletter
- In your email signature
- Within your blog posts
Run a Launch Rock Campaign
What is a Launch rock?
A Lauch rock is a free service for gathering email addresses of people who want to get an early access to the launch of a new product, service, app or really anything. A lauch rock can be an effective marketing tool because it encourages word of mouth. One can integrate social buttons within the subscription process which is a very powerful component when it comes to turning a campaign into a viral marketing channel.
Here is an example of a launch rock:
The idea is to offer a free give-away or some other offer which works on friend-bring-a-friend model. Make sure the message has a powerful incentive.
Invest on infographic
Over the last few years, infographics have become very popular. A professionally designed infographic is a very potent traffic generator. A professionally designed infographic can cost you anywhere between $100 and $2,000 but will be worth the investment.
Write amazing headlines
The headline of a blog post carries a lot more weight than what many people think. No matter the quality of your content, a bad headline can drive away visitors. Here are some tips for optimizing your blog titles:
- Use every day, simple language
- Keep it short and catchy. Leverage common psychological traits like fear, urgency, desire, etc.
- Use negatives such as Never Do This, Don’t, Avoid, etc.
Create Micro Content
Many people are now suffering from information overload, which means that they have less time and patience to consume content. A growing trend which Australian marketers and business owners should consider is the creation of micro content for easy consumption. A great service that has mostly been used is the Vine and SoundCloud.
Host a Twitter Q&A sessions
One way to keep your social media fans engaged is hosting a periodic Twitter Q&A sessions. The idea is to encourage your community to ask questions and seek clarifications concerning your product, industry or business. You can provide answers, take their feedback and even create a blog post from that. Over time, more people will begin to take part and slowly your brand and audience will grow.
Are you publishing Great Content? Try These SEO Tips
When you are writing articles for your website/blog, you have to ensure that you have got critical things covered so as to guarantee SEO-friendly articles. The aim of SEO is to ensure you optimize your content so that search engines can understand what your content is about and at the same time make it easy for your audience to find you. Having said that, there are no guarantees whatsoever that your content will rank well in search engines even if you write a mouth-watering SEO article. That is because there are critical components SEO article should have, besides producing a great story.
- Post title and Meta title
The main difference between post title and Meta title is that the post title is what the reader sees as the title of the post while the Meta title is what the search engines use to display to your readers in search engine results. If you fail to create a Meta title, search engines will treat your post title as the Meta title. Have a keyword included in your Meta title to improve your ranking fortunes. Also, keep your Meta title less than 66 characters.
- Meta description
You can add a short description to your Meta title to give your readers an idea of what your post is all about. In other words, the Meta description of your post acts as the sales copy of your post. If your post does not have a Meta description, make sure you include it to optimize your traffic. Your Meta description should not be more than 156 characters.
- Include Image descriptions
The long and short of it is that Google can’t read images. So it relies on the image Alt description to understand what the image is about. When you upload images to accompany your article, remember to name your images appropriately. For instance, if you are writing an essay about invisible man and communism and you decide to include an explanatory graphic, you can name your image as invisible-man-and-communism-illustration.
- Anchor and Interlink Text
Did you know that it is always good to link back to your other articles in your website? This enables readers to stick around for longer. This is particularly advantageous because search engines end up re-crawling the old posts. Interlinking your old pages also improves the sites readability and reduces bounce rates. When interlinking your site, remember to use appropriate anchor texts. An anchor text is the title of the link you are creating.
- Heading
A good article should be easy to read. An article that comprises of blocks of long paragraphs are not desirable. No one has time for boring stuff. Use appropriate headings especially if you are drafting a long post. It is also good practice to include your keywords in your headings.
- Length
Long articles are better than shorter ones. First of all, longer articles easily get noticed in search engines because it is assumed they provide in-depth analysis of the topic. Secondly, longer articles tend to have a wide range of long-tailed keywords spread throughout the content. It is difficult to achieve this with 200-word articles.
- Write for people, not search engines
Search engines are becoming very sophisticated, so much that it is nearly impossible to cheat them. Google wants you to offer your clients great content instead of simply stuffing your keywords for the purposes of ranking. This means that you should ensure your keywords are not only relevant to the article but also provide value to the readers.
As you can see, writing good articles takes patience, skill and time. That is why many people prefer to outsource their SEO articles needs to writing agencies, which is perfectly okay.
Why and How to Use Social Media for Local Business
Whether you are an individual entrepreneur, or part of a small, medium or giant business set-up, you certainly know that your customers are using social media. Therefore, there is no reason why you shouldn’t use it too if you want to reach them.
The good news is that it costs almost nothing to use social media, and it is easy to get started, yet it has the potential of having an enormous financial impact on your business. Another reason why you need to establish an online presence through social media is that it is a timely way of obtaining feedback from customers.
Social media is also used to market the business’ brand and products, as well as build relationship with customers. If used well, social media can also help in SEO performance of your site. A research conducted by Pan African University provided the following interesting statistics:
- 88% of fortune 100 companies use twitter daily to connect to their customers and 85% of companies worldwide use twitter at any stage of their recruitment process.
- Facebook has over 500,000,000 users worldwide (although this figure could be more because many people have since signed up).
- 45 billion of content is uploaded daily on Facebook.
- Twitter has over 156 million users.
- YouTube is the 2nd most searched site after Google.
Moreover, In an Altimeter Group survey of 700 executives and social strategists in 2012 found that 100 percent of participating enterprise organizations run to varying extents an active social media strategy.
How: Strategy and Tactics
As you can see, social media presents a fertile ground for you to register your business presence online. The next thing is to learn how to launch your social media presence. The truth of the matter is that it is difficult to succeed in social media without using strategy and tactics.
Strategy and tactics are inseparable here. You can’t design a successful online presence through social media without deep, firsthand knowledge of the tactics you’ll be using. Strategy will guide you on how to implement the strategies. Otherwise, aimless actions might not yield much. Here is how to go about it.
Know the Market: some market research will be critical. This will help you to understand the market, where your target audience is, as well as understanding the competition. Once you know the market, you can now begin penetrating it with the right messages.
Time and Quality Updates: Providing your audience with good updates, engaging contents, and timely news will enable your media presence to grow to unprecedented level. The more regular your updates are the better; don’t give updates every month. You also have to make a schedule so that you are consistent. For instance, you can issue updates twice a day, once a day, and so forth.
Social Media Tools: learn how to use a variety of tools to make your social media campaign an easy and effective way of reaching your audience. For example, you can use micro blogging tool to simultaneously your messages to the masses. A number of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn apps are available. If you have a website, remember to include your social media comment/like/follow tools.
Common mistakes while choosing a web host
Are you in the process of searching for the appropriate web host for your website? Here are some of the common mistakes that you should be aware of.
- Going for the cheapest web hosting plan
The cheapest hosting plan is not always the best because it has some drawbacks, which may be limiting to one’s business. What people should actually be aware of is that when someone offers a cheap plan, there is something they take back and that they may not offer everything else that others get at a higher cost. In other words, it is not likely that you will receive the same level of service as those who pay more because if it was possible to receive the same level of service, everyone in the planet would go for the cheapest web hosting providers. This then makes sense why we have coupon hosting for those who are involved in reseller hosting.
However, it does not necessarily mean that the most expensive hosting plans are always the best options. But it definitely means that the less you pay, the less services and features you get. When you choose a cheap web hosting, expect to experience many downtimes and poor server infrastructure and this may translate to poor quality customer service.
- Looking out for freebies
It is obviously advantageous to look for freebies, especially if you are a first timer. However, it is important to note that looking for the maximum number of freebies in one web host can make you lose focus and ultimately make the right web hosting decision. Most web hosting companies give away freebies to attract customers, but is upon you to look careful what the catch is. Some of the freebies are as good as they seem but they end up luring you to make a buying decision which could prove expensive in the long run. Therefore, ensure that the most important factors are right with host before you look at what freebies they are offering. Some of the factors to look at include: server speed and up time, great customer support, reasonable price and domain name registration policy (let us look at this next).
- Free domain
Many web masters get attracted with the offer of a free domain name. But it is advisable to look beyond this domain name trick because it can inconvenience you in future should you decide to move to a better host. What happens is that while some companies offer free domain services, they ensure that the domain name is registered under their company and not under your name. what this means is that you may not be able to take it with you when you move. However, the good news is that domain names are not expensive and it is possible to get one at a very cheap price and make it your own. So before going for a free domain name, find out whether you will own the domain name or it will be registered with that company.
Mjrvisuals can help you increase your reach out of that content in your website 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/
Customer Insights Every Business Owner Should Know
The key to success in today’s small business can be summed up in three simple words. “Know your customer.”
It is a perfect adage for today’s environment in which longstanding practices and realities are melting away to reveal a transformed landscape where opportunities are abundant, but often more obscured. In this new environment, customer insight is not only important, but also imperative.
It is no secret. Small business profitability is deeply connected to customer insight.
But what is customer insight?
Customer insight means having knowledge about customers and markets that helps structure thinking and decision making. It’s about having the whole picture, visible to the whole organization, from executive to customer service.
Customers expect you to know who they are, what they want, and how they want to be addressed. They want to converse with you. They want to be listened to.
Consider these recent consumer survey findings from the analyst firm Digital Clarity Group:
- Only one percent felt their customer expectations were always met.
- Around 89 percent had switched providers due to poor experiences.
- A full 82 percent said that the company they abandoned could have taken steps to keep their business.
What does this tell us? It means gaining customer insight is one of the most important things in business.
The source of insight
The next question we should be asking is, where can we obtain customer insight data? Customer insight comes from combining data from a number of sources. It is about using all data sources and applying the correct weight to them.
Insight comes from compiling and combining evidence, from data, to paint a picture. Merging the market research and database marketing teams is a step in the right direction, but it’s only part of what is required to create insight.
Part of this process is to know your customer’s touch point data. The following are sources of important customer insight data:
These sets of data can be generated from the following channels:
- Social media data
- Enterprise data
- In store talks
- Email communication
- Website logs
- Phone communication
- News media
- Syndicated research data
- Forums and review sites
The challenge most business owners face is leveraging the data they collect in order to create the right marketing mix. They struggle to aggregate the data to form the right customer insights and disseminate the right actions.
Customer insight requires that small business owners address the following points.
- Who are your most valuable customers (MVCs)
- What do they want to purchase?
- What motivates them to purchase?
- Beyond transaction, how can you interact with your MVCs in a relevant and profitable manner?
- How can you customize aspects of your product or service in order to meet the individual needs of your MVCs
Indeed, having the answers to the above questions is no longer a luxury. Small business owners must not only find answers but also act on those solutions in order to drive growth and profitability of their businesses.
The ability of firms to understand customers one at a time across multiple channels will mean the difference between success and failure because customer-based strategies are the key to competitive differentiation in today’s business world.
Knowing how, when and what to offer a customer can mean the difference between a profitable versus an unprofitable business.
According to Data Mine, you know you are on the right path and have the right customer insight in place when you have adequately answered the following critical questions.
- What is the aim of this organization?
Why was the organization formed? It is important to have the big picture even as you go about your daily duties. Unfortunately, many small business owners get consumed with daily tasks that they forget the mission statement of the company.
What is the organization’s customer acquisition strategy?
Every organization must have a marketing strategy. Doing business without a marketing strategy is like driving in the dark without the headlights. You risk not only getting involved in a fatal accident, but you also risk moving in the wrong direction.
What do we already know (not think we know)?
Obviously, you already know a few things about your customers. It is important to be aware of what you already know so that you can have a starting place.
- What do we need to know?
Now that you know what you know, it is time to know what you need to know. Identify the knowledge gaps and get the right information. Find out what data you need to collect and what tools you need to collect the data and collect it.
· How are we going to priorities what is needed?
Bearing in mind the constraints of time resources, identify the most urgent needs.
How will we ensure insight is retained in the business?
After gathering the customer insight, you need to ensure that it is retained in the business.
In short, insight is provided when the right questions are asked and solutions provided. The following illustration illustrates this very well.
The building blocks of customer insight are:
· Clearly defined company aim and objectives
· Customer driven marketing
· Organized and accessible data
· The right people in the insight team
· Knowledge management
In order to achieve customer insight, people must work collaboratively in the organization and have a clear data strategy.
Customer insight is not employing an analyst, or even a team of analysts. It requires organizational commitment to change. If it was easy, every organization would have customer insight sorted.
Mjrvisuals can help you increase your reach out of that content in your website 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/
Cheap Marketing Ideas you can implement on your Online and Offline Business
Don’t have many bucks to spend on your small business or start-up? Establishing an efficient marketing strategy is sometimes a challenge for small business owners in Australia because they are unable to allocate considerable funds for marketing; most of them operate on a shoestring budget. You don’t have to break the bank to market your small business in Australia.
Moreover, very day, we hear from small business owners who think they need special skills to reach their customers. Many of these Australian small business owners eventually get overwhelmed by the number and the complex marketing options available, and end up sitting on the sidelines because they are confused where to start. In this article, we will look at 77 local marketing ideas for small business owners in Australia.
Positioning and branding
- Build brand identity
Building your business brand identity can have a big impact
- Add emotion to your brand
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.
- 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.
- Create 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 message 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.
- 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.
Multiband strategies are likely to suffer from diseconomies 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.
- 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.