9 Keys to Marketing Success

The right marketing strategy can make or break your business. Marketing is all about finding your ideal customer and presenting your business to them in the right light. You want your potential customer to know why they need you and how you can make their lives easier. Finding the keys to marketing success will lead you to profitability.

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Key 1: Speed

The first key to success seems obvious: a fast and responsive website. Having a website allows you to not only market your business but also establishes credibility. When potential customers search for your brand, they should see your website. When they visit this website, they expect it to load in under two seconds. Having issues with bounce rates and speed can deter customers from your business and cause you to lose out on major opportunities.

Key 2: Website Optimization

Speed is only the first hurdle that your website has to overcome, but speed isn’t the only contributing factor to bounce rates. For optimum results, you should make sure that your site is optimized for conversions. Try asking yourself the following questions:

Key 3: Data Tracking

In day to day life, we use KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure ourselves. If you are a fitness buff, it can be as simple as tracking your caloric intake! KPIs are monumental for your business success and should be implemented in every facet of your company. From your financials to your website heat map, all of your business action items should produce data and give you actionable insights. Using these benchmarks can highlight where you are improving and where your business needs improvement. As important as data is, your tracking systems should be installed correctly. You wouldn’t believe how many business owners pay thousands for tracking software only to not know how to use it! 

Key 4: Reviews

What others say about you and your business can either inhibit or expand profitability. Word of mouth is important and this includes your online reputation. For example, 60% of customers will refer friends to a brand that provided a positive experience. What happens if this online reputation is mostly negative? Studies have shown that up to 80% of consumers will think twice about doing business with a brand that has negative online reviews. By curating five-star reviews, both from your excellence in service and with the right marketing tactics, you can improve your search rankings and online reputation. 

Key five: Content 

SEO is a tricky beast to understand and is entirely based on your website content. The right content strategy will improve your search rankings and decrease your customer acquisition cost, which makes finding the right strategy imperative. With a background of intensive keyword research you can create a content strategy for relevant and lucrative searches and widen your customer base. Your ideal content strategy should be relevant, current, and to the point. 

Key 6: PPC

Organic rankings and search results can only take your business so far. To increase your exposure to future customers, you need to create a PPC strategy that meets your business goals. By creating a productive and profitable PPC strategy, you will increase your revenue stream while heightening your brand awareness. 

Key 7: Social Media

A newer secret to marketing strategies, social media marketing is an important step in a cohesive and inclusive business plan. With more than three billion people on social media, this is an opportunity to reach future customers. This strategy can deter customers from choosing your brand, or it can create a long and meaningful customer relationship. This tricky balancing act requires testing and constant effort, but it could be a hack to profitability. 

Key 8 (Almost there!): Video Content

With the growing rate of shortening attention spans, the impact of video is vital to business success. Including video on your website, as well as social media sites, can massively impact conversion rates. Almost 50% of customers look for videos on a product or service before even going to make a purchase decision. Not only do videos affect conversion rates, but can also improve your search rankings. A website with a video is 53 more likely to reach the front page of Google search results. Professional and relevant video content is key in your comprehensive marketing strategy. 

Key 9: Strategize 

The final key, the last door to enter before profitability, is the most important of them all. For business profitability and success, you need to have a strategy that grows your company. Stagnant is a dirty word in business and you want to avoid it at all costs. This strategy and mindset for growth will create action items out of your goals. Infusing growth strategies in all arms of your business allows you to measure and track your success. 

We Do Bidness

Looking to achieve profitability through your marketing strategy? Let us help your business skyrocket. Stop wasting time on marketing strategies (or firms) that just don’t work, take advantage of our years of marketing success, and give us a call. 

Schedule a meeting with one of our specialists to find out more!

How Your Website Load Speed Affects Bounce Rates

Your website speaks volumes on your brand, it is an indicator of your product or service that consumers take seriously. As a brand, you want to make sure that your site is representing your products or services accurately and in the best light. There are many key metrics that show how you are performing on your website, but a slow website load speed can dramatically increase your bounce rate. 

A website bounce rate is a term used in website traffic analysis, it represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave. Ideally, as a business, you want a bounce rate of 26-40% and anything over 70% is cause for alarm. 

Why Is My Website Bounce Rate So High?

Customers go to your website to learn more about who you are and what you offer; if you have uninformative content, this could be contributing to an increased bounce rate. If your site content does not address the needs or concerns or a customer, they have no reason to stay. Customers are increasingly likely to leave a brand for a new one that serves their needs. The right content and copy on a website can convince a customer to stay on your site. 

It is human nature to make a judgment within a matter of seconds. If your site is disorganized, hard to read or understand, or just visually unappealing— visitors are likely to leave. User experience is key in website design and can appeal to customers to navigate through your site. 

A slow website or technical error is a common factor in high bounce rates. Customers do not want to hit a roadblock when trying to learn more about your product or service. If a plugin goes down or has a slow loading window, a customer will quickly leave your site. Anything taking longer than a few seconds to load is far too long.47% of customers expect a website to load in under two seconds! A single-second improvement in website load speed can astronomically increase site traffic and conversions. 

Secrets to Improving Your Website Load Speed and Bounce Rate

Is your bounce rate getting out of hand? Follow these simple steps to decrease your bounce rate and improve your site metrics. 

Create more landing pages

If you are getting a high bounce rate from your PPC strategy, chances are that you need to redesign or create more landing pages. Try creating landing pages that solve a particular customer pain point and increase site traffic. 

Match the need for speed

Since website load speed is such a large contributor to high bounce rates, it is important that you tackle increasing your site speed. The easiest way to speed up your site is to add a CDN (content delivery network). A CDN caches copies of your site on servers around the world, this allows your site to be delivered faster. Regardless of how fast your site is, it can never tackle the issue of distance and a CDN solves this issue. You can also optimize your website performance by optimizing images, reducing HTTP requests, and font performance optimization.

Get rid of interruptions

Popups can be a necessary evil, as some brands have seen up to a 46% increase in email signups by using a popup. However, irrelevant popups are seen as annoying and distracting to customers. This takes some testing and strategy, test different time windows or location popups for full optimization. 

Clearly guide customers

If the navigation of your site is unclear or disorganized, customers don’t know where to go and will commonly leave your site. You have to make sure that a new customer can easily navigate through your site and find the content they are looking for. You can use many heatmap plugins for your site to find where users are getting confused. 

Use your phone

In 2020, mobile devices generate around 51% of all website traffic. This means that making sure your mobile site is responsive and speedy is increasingly important. You should be testing the speed and user experience of your site on a multitude of mobile devices and editing your website accordingly. 

Aesthetics and content matter

The design of your website matters to customers, it should be visually appealing and direct. Customers do not spend time on sites that look like they were just thrown together, so it is vital that you spend time on the design of your site. This includes the copy that is on your site! Your copy should be easy to read and understand. You can use tools to test the readability of your content— and since the average adult reads at a 9th-grade level, we recommend that you do!

We said it before, and we will say it again: Content matters!

Having up to date and relevant content can dramatically increase site traffic and time spent on your site. Having current content also allows you to appear higher in Google search results.

Linked up

Backlinking and internal linking is a great SEO practice and is proven to increase your search rankings. What you likely didn’t know though, is that it can also help decrease your bounce rate. Internal links are commonly clicked on by your site users and can keep them on your site. During this process, don’t forget to check your links to make sure they are not broken. Broken links are a contributing factor to a high bounce rate, even though it is an easy fix!

Schedule a meeting with one of our specialists to find out more!

The Right Way to Get Business Reviews and How to Monitor Them

Word of mouth is the most popular way of expressing feedback. When someone is researching your brand, they will take to Google™ and reviews. This is the first impression leads will get of your brand, which makes it imperative that you position your brand to get business reviews in a positive light. 

What happens when you have an awful experience at a restaurant, or you order something online and it is not what you expected? You tell everyone! Your sister, father, friend, significant other all know about how much you detested your experience. The same is to be said if you had a positive experience with a product or service.

Why Brand Perception and Reviews Matter

A recent study shows that today’s buyers are more knowledgeable but less brand loyal than ever before. The customers of today are sharing their experiences more frequently, and potential customers are taking these reviews seriously. With the switch of brand loyalty, customers are quick to switch to a brand that meets their needs and expectations. 

The average customer will make a judgment on your brand based on what they read in a review, and what it says online about your brand can be a make or break decision. 90% of customers read reviews before a purchase decision.  A positive online reputation, based on positive reviews, can make a customer increasingly likely to choose your service and then recommend your brand. In fact, 60% of customers will refer friends to a brand that provided a positive experience. However, a negative experience means that you are not only losing out on these referrals but that they will tell other potential customers why they would not recommend you. Studies have shown that up to 80% of consumers will think twice about doing business with a brand that has negative online reviews.

How Can Negative Reviews Impact Your Online Presence

Google can be a tricky beast, especially when it comes to negative reviews. Negative reviews have a large impact on your business reputation and the search results on Google. If you have a large amount of these unfavorable reviews, Google will be less likely to show your business under search results. This is especially true if you do not have relevant and frequent content on your website. 

How to Get Reviews

The total number of reviews offsets negative ones and increased localized search rankings. If you have 25-100 reviews, it is unlikely that customers will read through them all. This is not to say one negative review will diminish your business, customers are looking for a generalized consensus when it comes to brands. To put it short: more reviews = higher search rankings, increased leads, increased sales, increased revenue. In this case, more is more! 

So, how do you increase your reviews? Try some of our tested tactics:

  1. Ask! The easiest way to increase your reviews is to ask. If you have a happy customer, ask them to write a review.
  2. Send a follow-up email. Send your customers a follow-up email after service and ask them to leave a review, make sure that your email is personal and professional for optimum results.
  3. Use a leave behind. A leave behind is a physical item that is left for the customer. This can be a business card, flyer, or even a piece of candy! Make sure that this item contains information about the order and asks for a review. 
  4. Add a link to Google reviews on your website. This is another simple way to increase your reviews. 
  5. Add CTA (call to actions) on your website. This can be a pop-up that asks how the customer is enjoying your product or service with a link to leave a review. 

Monitoring Google Reviews

Customers take negative reviews seriously but will be suspicious of only positive reviews. Consumers tend to think negative reviews have more credibility and will think them more persuasive than positive reviews. This is why it is vital to respond to reviews and address concerns, monitor your reviews, and present a helpful brand voice. 

To monitor your reviews, you can start by signing up for Google alerts. Google Alerts will monitor keywords (like your brand name or a product or service that you offer) and anytime those keywords are mentioned, you will get an email notification. There are many online services that will also monitor your online reviews and put them into an easily managed dashboard. 

Now, what happens when you cross a negative review? It is imperative that you respond to the review. Most businesses are so focused on generating reviews that they forget the importance of responding to them. The simple act of responding to a negative review shows a lot about your brand. 

What are the best practices of responding to reviews? 

Schedule a meeting with one of our specialists to find out more!

5 Tips on How to Set Up a Profitable PPC Strategy

In the era of digital marketing, pay-per-click advertising (PPC) has a proven record of increasing business and profits. A strong PPC strategy allows you to increase visibility on search engines and social media. It is reported that customers to your site are 50% more likely to make a purchase if they were pulled in with PPC. 

Experts are assisting businesses in doubling their customer base, but if you are looking to set up a profitable PPC strategy on your own— we can help! Keep reading for our five tips for PPC profitability.

Paid Search Spend: Define Your Goals and Budget

PPC strategy can have a range of goals: growing your business, increasing profit, boosting conversion rates. Which goal is right for you? Look at your quarterly goals for guidance. For new businesses, your best option is to grow your business. This can be a more expensive strategy but will help increase customer loyalty and boost the start of your business. Once you have this strategy, make sure that you are only participating in PPC actions that support this. It is vital that once you have this goal, it remains unchanged. Typical PPC strategy takes months to work, so don’t get discouraged if you are not seeing immediate results. 

The next step is to make sure that you set your budget. Unlike your goals, this should be malleable and easily adapted for changes in the marketing environment. Identify your breakeven point between when your spend efforts start producing a positive ROI. If your goal is to grow, this might be a goal KPI and not a baseline. 

PPC the Smart Way: Analyze Your Competitors

After you set your goals and budget, identify your main competitors. Once you have them, start diving deep into their paid search strategy. What are they doing that is making them successful? How aggressive do you need to be in your PPC strategy to compete with them? Use keyword planner inside Google Ads or another keyword system to identify your competitors’ organic and paid keywords. You can use these keywords to prioritize your own keywords. Ask yourself the following questions in your analysis:

Once you have a list of keywords from your competitor analysis, start brainstorming your own. There are many tools for this, but Google Analytics is a great free option. Create ad groups of these keywords with goals in mind. Group keywords based on relevance to your business and to each other. 

PPC Content: Write Helpful Ad Text

Now that you have your ad groups, the ad text for each will be different. The right copy can either inhibit or accelerate your ad; it can increase your click-through rates and reduce your customer acquisition cost. 

In your ad copy, you should use the target keyword at least once in both the headline and body of the ad. This will create relevancy for your ad. Within the copy of the ad, there should be a CTA (Call to Action). This can be as simple as a “give us a call today” line. The copy of your ad also includes your display URL. Customers commonly look to the URL to make sure that it follows the ad and looks user-friendly. A great baseline is to look at your competitor’s ad to see how they are strategizing. Try to make your ad more compelling and descriptive. After you have finalized this copy, make sure to run tests and change your ads as needed. 

PPC Endgame: Create an Effective Landing Page

Each ad should take your customer to a specific landing page. If your ad just takes the customer to your homepage, they will likely get frustrated when they do not see the content they were looking for and leave your page. The more aligned your ad and landing page are, the higher your conversions will be. 

This landing page should have clear messaging and the relevant keywords should be increasingly present. Studies have shown that including relevant copy on the landing page has increased conversions by 39%. Each landing page should include a CTA based on your goals, have a user-friendly design, and only contain the most essential copy. Your objective should be to make a sale, and not for the customer to bounce around your site. 

PPC Continued: Optimize, Strategize, Adapt!

Once you set up your PPC strategy, you cannot just let it run itself. A successful ad strategy should be constantly tested, tweaked, and adapted. Start this process by identifying keywords that are hurting your conversions and ROI. You can do this by using the Google Ads Search Term Report. Look for keywords that are high in impressions but have a low click-through rate. Go through this list and identify if they are in the correct ad group or if you should tag them as a negative keyword. Negative keywords ensure that your ad will not appear for that search term, and will increase your click-through rate. Also through this process, identify if there are broad search terms that are hurting your spending. Broad match allows your ads to appear on any variation of the search term. You might want to eliminate those at this point. 

Finally, refer to your goals and find out if your ROI is in line with those goals. If your goal is to decrease your cost per conversion, it will likely be time to optimize your spending. Try distributing your budget or reallocating your budget to higher performing ad groups. 

Schedule a meeting with one of our specialists to find out more!

How to Make a Social Media Strategy That Grows Your Business

There are now more than three billion users on social media across the world. We use social media in our day-to-day life and the average person spends up to three hours a day on social media! In this digital age, social media is just as important as your search results. Are you leveraging a social media strategy for your business? If not, you are missing out on multi-million dollar opportunities. 

WHY IS SOCIAL MEDIA IMPORTANT TO YOUR BRAND?

Three billion people are using social media every day, and these people are using it to engage with brands. More social media users follow brands than celebrities on these platforms. On Instagram, more than 80% of people follow at least one brand. 

So how can social media help your brand? First, and possibly most importantly, your social media presence increases your brand awareness. Social media platforms are an easy way for brands to reach new potential customers. Users are not only connecting with brands they know, in fact, but 60% of Instagram users say that they discover new products on this platform alone. Having a social presence humanizes your brand by connecting with consumers. This shows your brand personality and creates a connection to your ideals and goals.  Being present on platforms also allows you to increase your website traffic. By sharing content from your site to social media, you can increase traffic and get attention from customers. This, in turn, generates leads and can boost your sales. 

GROW YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

Realizing the importance of social media on your business is the first step towards success, but how can you leverage this and increase your presence? We have some key steps to leveraging and growing your social media presence:

  1. Understand Your Platform

Each social media platform has a different use, client base, and content delivery. Take a look at the platforms you want to leverage and create goals around this. On Facebook, videos get at 59% more engagement than other posts on average. Understanding engagement and metrics will help you leverage the appropriate posts per platform. 

  1. Humanize Your Brand

Don’t forget that your brand has a personality! Let your audiences see you and your brand as relatable. This means increasing your interaction and not just uploading content and disappearing. Respond to posts and connect with your audience. By doing this your customer base will feel more connected to your brand and increase the time they spend on your profile. 

  1. Know Your Audience

Understanding the needs and pain points of your audience can move mountains for your brand. This intimate interaction with your customers will help you know what they want to read more about. You can edit and adapt your content to this strategy, while also reaching new target audiences. 

  1. Let Them Know Where to Find You

If you know anything about SEO, you know backlinking is a prominent key to website success. Think of this as a similar strategy. On your website, include your social media icons. This makes it easier for customers to find you and will organically increase your social media following. In the reverse, on your socials, link to your website. You want to make sure that customers or followers know where to find you or learn more about your company and brand. 

  1. Content is Key

Make sure that your social media is serving a purpose. Look to your business goals for social media platforms to design what content is needed. This is an obvious blog strategy, developing relevant content from your brand, but it is also important to your social media strategy. Provide sharable and relevant content to your followers with the use of hashtags and content testing. Are you a brand that engages in humor? Create brand-specific memes or content that others will want to share! 

Schedule a meeting with one of our specialists to find out more!

5 Business Success Tips for a Changing World

Have you ever experienced a traumatic event? Unfortunately, chances are that you have. Throughout my life, I have had several experiences that have left me in a vulnerable state. These experiences, as upsetting and altering as they can be, teach us lessons. These 5 business success tips for a changing world teach us to navigate any storm that faces us.  

Navigating the New Normal 

Learning to navigate a prolonged storm, negative experience, or changing season are some of the toughest challenges you will ever encounter. Now more than ever, we find ourselves in a year that has provided more storms than the majority of us have experienced. 2020 has launched us all on so many roller coasters that it has suddenly become the “new normal.” This is dangerous for entrepreneurs because this “new normal” has caused thousands of businesses across the United States to go up in flames. As a result of this millions of people who have poured themselves into their life’s work suddenly don’t know where to go. 

 Adapting Your Business to A Changing World

With all of this being said, how in the world can one blog post be enough to encourage anyone that they can overcome any difficult season? When you are wanting to navigate through tough times, where do you even start? In business the only thing you can do is adapt to every environment, take one step forward, and adapt to changes that arise. Nothing will ever get accomplished if you wait for the right time, the perfect moment, or any other circumstance to develop that convinces you that the time is now to move forward. The unfortunate reality of the season we are all experiencing, is that the life and death of businesses across the country is laying in the hands of owners and executives who are unable to adapt to challenging seasons.

My hope is that you would be the anomaly, and your business would thrive because you continue to move the needle forward in every area of your life. Now is the time to take action in your business, relationships, finances, and life as a whole. Don’t allow yourself to succumb to the excuses of this world, rather rise up and push forward. Don’t wait for perfection to move, just keep firing away at your goals and objectives while adapting with every step. 

Learning To Adapt

  1. Don’t be afraid to change. If you are unable to accept it, you may quickly find yourself trapped in your past mindset and unable to adapt.
  2. Focus on the present, but keep an eye on the future. If you can keep your focus on today’s problems while getting ahead of significant industry changes coming your way, you’ll be ready to adapt at a moment’s notice.
  3. Watch your competition! By knowing your competitors and seeing what is or isn’t working for them, you’ll be better suited to help adjust your business model to the market. 
  4. Get market feedback and listen to the information you get back. Adjust your business plan to meet the ever-changing needs of your customers.
  5. Be realistic with your expectations. Know your limits and those of your market to help you adapt to changes you can expect to see coming in the following months. 

Adapt, Fire, Adapt!

Schedule a meeting with one of our specialists to find out more!

The Right Way to Stay One Step Ahead for Success

When you wake up in the morning, who do you see looking back at you in the mirror? This infamous adage has been a staple of our society for generations. Anytime you hear an inspirational message, you can nearly guarantee that the speaker will challenge the audience to look inward. Or as pop music would tell you, “The Man in the Mirror.” As the song goes, “if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.” We are told to consistently challenge ourselves to be better and do better. However, what if I told you that merely challenging yourself on a daily basis isn’t enough?

Investing in Yourself

Although this saying might be overplayed in our society, this is a proverb I firmly believe in. It is vital to commit to and invest in ourselves, personally and professionally. One of my greatest fears as a man, husband, father, leader is to look in the mirror and feel anything other than proud of the person I have become. There is something intrinsically motivating about committing to yourself and your goals; waking up each day and committing to learning and developing yourself further. 

The Importance of Negotiation in Daily Life

Here’s the catch, it is not enough to maintain the discipline of self-development. I cannot count the number of times I have woken up in the morning, and the tempting thought of skipping a day or “doing it tomorrow” calls to me. The late, great Kobe Bryant once mentioned that the key to his success was never allowing a negotiation to happen with himself. That one made me think, how often do you negotiate with yourself every day? How many times have you looked at your calendar and said, “Oh, I still have time! I will do it tomorrow!”? Speaking for myself, too many to count. I am here to tell you that in order to truly be one step ahead of “The Man in the Mirror” is to create routines, disciplines, and mindsets that elevate you every day. Creating an internal culture of improvement allows you to aim for success and greatness. Committing to daily growth, rather than just challenging yourself, creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

My question to you is: How likely are you to implement the changes necessary to surpass who you are today? 

Are You Ready to Start Today? 

Start with asking yourself these questions:

Make the commitment today to be one step ahead of the “Man in the Mirror”!

Schedule a meeting with one of our specialists to find out more!

How to Build Reciprocation in Business Partnerships

Have you ever had a friend, colleague, or stranger ask you for a favor? Most times, when people in my life ask for help, I will often lend a hand—no matter the issue. Taking care of people is something I take very seriously, and I pride myself that those in my life can count on me.

However, as the clock ticks throughout my career, I have found it interesting that the desire to help business owners with their favors is often not reciprocated. Whether you find yourself running a multimillion-dollar business or working on a small project, you will always find those who ask for more than they are willing to give. 

Reciprocation in Partnerships

Knowing this truth, why do we continue to give to those around us—knowing that our request is unlikely to be carried out with the same fervor? The truth is that a giving heart is almost always rewarded. In the short term, an unreciprocated action might make one feel undervalued and taken advantage of. Still, over time I have always looked upon these situations with happiness. Each interaction has taught me a lesson, whether it be in business or life. By choosing to not expect back what I have given, I can always walk away with a positive experience. 

When it comes to your business, understanding this concept is vital to building a long-term brand. By eliminating the necessity of reciprocity, your customers, vendors, prospects, and employees are empowered and feel valued. Giving more than expected fosters a reciprocal relationship as a byproduct of operating your business with an open mind. As the adage goes, under-promise and over-deliver!  

Incorporating Reciprocation Into Your Business Model

I have found that the core to my success in scaling my business has been accomplished by taking this principle and applying it to various partners across all levels of my organization. When you create a business model of over-delivering, you open the door to building a long-term relationship with valuable brands and businesses. This allows you to reach a broader audience and share your message across other target markets. Thus, creating a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Aiming for reciprocation in your business and personal relationships will be a long road, but you can achieve it! It will always start with you willing to give more than you receive. For some of us, this will be a struggle. It takes time to get used to, and sometimes you will face situations where others might take advantage, but it will strengthen both you and your business.

Ask yourself these questions:

Take the first step today and aim for reciprocation in every area of your life, starting with: “How can you give more than you did yesterday?”

Schedule a meeting with one of our specialists to find out more!