SEO for Startups: How Your Business Can Benefit

The internet has revolutionized the way companies find and reach their customers. No longer reliant on billboards and television ads to gain visibility, small businesses can launch powerful, hyper-focused campaigns to target their specific niche in the market. However, consumers are becoming savvier to traditional marketing techniques, and tend to be wary of paid results. In fact, a study from group GroupM UK and Nielsen found organic searches are favored 94% of the time, and according to the group Search Engine Watch the first page of links receives 92% of all clicks. This is why a strong search engine optimized content strategy needs to be central to your startup’s marketing plan.

Here are 4 tips you can use to get your startup to the first page:

1. Play the Long Game

The first thing to know about SEO optimization is that it takes time. That can mean anywhere from six months to a year to start seeing results, even if your content is excellent. There are many techniques to game Google’s algorithm such as landing pages and pillar pages, but these rely on slowly building a strong SEO content ecosystem. The most important strategy is to find the words and questions that your customers are searching for, and creating content that will be helpful, engaging, and relevant while also developing your brand. Naturally, this can not be the only marketing technique your company uses, but establishing a deep, interconnected content library will pay dividends down the line. This doesn’t just mean search rankings either. Good SEO content can be repurposed and condensed for engaging social media posts, or collected and offered as an ebook on your landing page.

2. Get Specific

Say your company operates in a small niche of an overcrowded market, like making organic pet food for older dogs. It clearly wouldn’t be good SEO content strategy to try and compete with all the other articles just about ‘food’, or ‘dogs’, or even ‘dog food’. Instead, imagine what your customer is searching for and work from there. How does your company connect to their niche issue? What words and phrases describe your company, but not the rest of the market? Creating a narrow focus with keywords means you aren’t wasting time trying to compete with larger companies, better established, and gives you a more direct line to your customer.

The real work for a niche start-up comes from balancing SEO competition with web traffic for those terms. Luckily, there are ways to help eliminate the guesswork. For example, the Mangools extension for Chrome makes it easy to find long-tail keywords with low competition, and helps you choose between options. From there, any professional-grade marketing platform will support A-B testing, which can be used to fine-tune your messaging and SEO keyword selection as you rise through the ranks.

3. Make Something Up

It might seem obvious, but the best way to make a search term direct the consumer to your articles is by coining the term yourself. This is becoming increasingly common for startups in sectors like technology, where differentiation can be especially difficult. Of course, this is best employed once an online presence is already established, so you can maximize the visibility of your new idea. A zero-competition keyword is no good if it’s getting zero traffic. Additionally, balance the coining of new terms with consistency in what you are already saying. Just because a term isn’t catching on immediately doesn’t mean it won’t. Be patient, and if it becomes clear the tactic isn’t working, move on. A unique term also has the power to turn your brand into a thought leader within your niche if it gets adopted by others in your field. This is extremely powerful for SEO, as outside links to your pages will strengthen your position in search rankings.

4. Don’t Stop There

As mentioned above, SEO marketing is a vital base for startups looking to develop their online presence and visibility, but it is just one part of the whole marketing picture. It works best in combination with a solid inbound marketing strategy to draw potential customers down the buyers’ pipeline. The SEO in your long-form content can also be used to help develop a cohesive social media presence to build brand awareness. Banner ads and calls-to-action can leverage the value provided by your content to build email lists of interested readers. Any startup planning to market itself absolutely needs SEO content for a successful campaign, but that SEO content needs to be surrounded by a solid marketing strategy. Hiring a professional inbound marketing firm or freelancer can provide great ROI for new startups, as they can develop content, social media, and email strategy together.

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How to Price Your Marketing Service: Hourly Rates vs. Selling as a Package

Anyone who works in a service industry knows that when you sell to a client, two things are happening: The customer is trying to get the best deal they can, and you are trying maximize the profitability of your sale. This means that as someone providing a service, you need to convince your customer that the value of your service is more than worth the price you are asking. Especially in a crowded field like marketing, finding the right pricing scheme (or schemes) is vital to make your marketing service stand out. Here, we will be comparing the benefits of selling your service at an hourly rate versus selling it in package deals.

Hourly Rates

Generally speaking, hourly fees are more profitable for the marketer and more costly for client. A potential client will almost always prefer a package deal to an hourly fee, as the risk for loss is on them if you go overtime. This means that hourly rates should be reserved for short-term consulting and specialized work. An example of this might be bespoke marketing work for a legal firm who has hired you to come in and set them up for simple in-house marketing.

Tasks for a job like this might include gathering and uploading email lists, creating custom email and inbound advertisement templates, and integrating all these new structures into their website or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. In this situation, your position as an advising professional would put you in a position to ask for an hourly rate given the level of care asked for in the work. However, for businesses that want to do more themselves and just need a standard setup, a pre-packaged setup may be better.

Standard Setup Packages

There are currently many online marketing services available for businesses to automate their marketing pipeline. This can be especially attractive for small operations looking to get a foothold online without the need for a dedicated marketing team. The best way to win these customers over is to provide pre-packaged, flat-rate bundles that combine the basic tools of email marketing with content marketing and social media with a human touch. This often means in-person training in the email services and how to use templates, as well as minor trouble shooting along the way to ensure the implementation goes smoothly.

These packages can start around $500, but many go as high as $3000 depending on the services offered. To make the package attractive to the client and profitable to you, you need to be upfront both about the price and which services are and aren’t provided. In a study by the marketing platform Workamajig , well under half marketing firms surveyed gave a price upfront. If your prices are competitive, make them a selling point, and let businesses know exactly what they can get for their dollar.

The Full-Service Retainer

Finally, for businesses who want to place all marketing duties in the hands of a professional, there is the monthly retainer. This setup requires a great deal of trust between parties, so it’s important to establish a strong relationship with your potential long-term partner. While past work done provides the strongest indicator of value to your client, courting potential partners with free services such as marketing audits can be a powerful way to show the benefits of choosing your marketing service. Landing these contracts can be enormously profitable for your marketing service, so it is definitely worth putting in the work to pursue them.  According to research by entrepreneur.com the average retainer is $1000-$3000 per month. For this price, your client will expect you to create successful campaigns on their behalf, set marketing goals, and keep them updated on progress. But that’s just the contract in broad strokes. When it comes to the details, you need to specific about the expectation and limitations of the retainer. In a contract, vague language like ‘solving minor issues’ or ‘bug fixes’ can mean different things to you and your client. Be sure to describe the timeframe a ‘minor issue’ takes to fix, and differentiate between a fix and a feature. This way, your client doesn’t feel cheated, and you can be fairly compensated for extra work done.    

In conclusion

To run a successful marketing service, it is necessary to balance the types of clients you have. Hourly rates will work for spot-polishing a business’s marketing setup, but more in-depth client

needs will be a better fit for a package or a retainer. Most important is to always be testing new prices and new services. No one format is guaranteed to work, so make sure the business model for your marketing service is flexible. Following the market and adjusting accordingly in the only way to survive in today’s fast-moving economy.

The Top Five Reasons for Cart Abandonment (And How to Avoid Them)

Cart abandonment is a huge problem for small e-commerce vendors, and with more options to choose from every day, the average rate or cart abandonment has increased 10% since 2006. For an e-store owner trying to make it in the digital market place, reducing the cart abandonment rate can be the difference between thriving and failing as a business. This isn’t just a problem for SMEs either. Major sites like Amazon, Wayfair, and Crate & Barrel do extensive research to optimize their checkout systems and reduce the number of lost carts. Recent studies by Statista and by the Baymard Institute have independently identified a number of reasons customers tend to abandon their carts. Here is a list of some of the most common, and our insights into preventing them in your e-store.   

Source: Statista.com

Source: Baymard.com

1. Unexpected Shipping Cost (or other hidden fees)

Any e-commerce businessowner knows the long list of costs it takes to get an item to a customer. There’s packaging, shipping, sales tax, and if the product is shipped internationally there can be import fees and exchange rates as well. But if you’re a customer, you probably aren’t considering that.  If you only see the item price when adding items to your cart, there are few bigger turn-offs than discovering the great deal you found actually costs $10 more due to shipping and handling fees. Only revealing the full price a customer will pay on the last screen can feel misleading or dishonest, and cause a potential buyer to abandon an e-store entirely.  According to research by Statista, 25% of abandoned carts were due to unexpected costs, and research from the Baymard Institute put the number at a whopping 60%.

The simple solution is transparency. Make sure the customer knows exactly how much they’ll be charged, and where any extra fees come from. Amazon is a shining example of pricing transparency. Every product lets you know where there’s free shipping, where there are import fees, and how the speed of delivery effects cost. Of course, a small e-commerce business won’t have the same resources and organizational complexity as the largest online retailer in the world, but implementing some of their best practices can help avoid cart abandonment.

Beyond just showing all costs upfront, another best practice is to provide different delivery speeds for different rates. Being able to accommodate a customer’s timeframe can give you a leg up on competition, even if they have to pay more for it. Again, making sure all this information is available from the start is crucial. Additionally, offering free shipping above a certain price can encourage customers to spend more in order to save. The sense of winning a good deal will make it less likely for a customer to abandon their cart.   

2. No Guest Checkout

Marketing is one of the most important aspects of running an e-commerce business. It is not, however, more important than getting a customer through the final stage of checkout. Requiring a store account to check out is an excellent way to build your email list while also making a profit, but if your customer doesn’t want to give out their personal information you risk losing both. In the surveys conducted by Statista and the Baymard institute, 22% and 37% of respondents respectively named no guest checkout as a reason for cart abandonment. Remember, you can always ask for the email and address afterwards, so don’t demand them upfront.

The solution to this problem is remarkably easy, especially if your digital storefront is on a platform like WooCommerce or Shopify. All you need to do is go to settings and enable guest checkout. Depending on your business structure you can also choose the option to eliminate accounts entirely. Creating a guest checkout might be slightly harder if you have a custom site, but a good web developer should be able to add it in quickly.        

3. Overly Long or Complicated Checkout

User experience is incredibly important in preventing abandoned carts in your e-store. In the Statista survey 9% of respondents cited excessively long or complicated checkout processes as their reason for cart abandonment, and in the Baymard survey that number was as high as 28%. Having an easy-to-use, streamlined checkout lets your customer know that you value their time, and adds to the overall professionalism of your business. When it comes to checkout, less is more.

One way to help speed up the checkout pipeline is allowing your site to autofill the customer’s information. Reducing the number of fields to fill means your customer spends less time in the checkout, resulting in a faster sale. Auto-filling is also another sign of site sophistication, which inspires confidence in your brand.

As for layout, make sure every section of your checkout process is clearly labelled, and easy to understand. Many sites have a map at the top, describing how many steps there are to complete, which the customer is on, and what each step entails. Five pages is generally a hard maximum for the checkout process, with any more becoming overwhelming. Also, make sure moving between the steps in any direction is simple and intuitive. Loosing your buyer in the home stretch is a terrible waste of a carefully planned pipeline, so make the last steps quick and painless.   

4. Payment Security Concerns

Especially when dealing with sites that aren’t well known or hosted on a reputable platform, customers are often rightfully wary about giving up their credit card information. The Statista survey found that security concerns are responsible for 17% of abandoned carts. That’s a lot of business lost. For these small e-stores, the best way to make up for the lack of name recognition is with transparency and professionalism. Having a clean, glitch-free layout, a strong social media presence, and good reviews will inspire confidence in your business, and avoid cart abandonment.

One simple and easy mark of legitimacy is a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. This shows up as a little lock icon before the URL on your webpage, and means that credit card information, usernames, and passwords sent over the internet are encrypted and secure. Websites without the certificates are marked with a warning sign, and will likely scare off most potential customers. The way to get a certificate for your site, is by visiting SSL.com.   

Another way to increase the professionalism of your site is to include an ‘about us’ section. For those who are on the ledge about trusting your business, seeing a small blurb with a picture of your face can really make the difference in trusting you with their money. Even just seeing the section on your site proves a level of care to customers, and fostering that impression is vital for small e-commerce businesses.    

5. Distraction

Everyone at one time or another has probably had the experience of looking at items on a site, deciding on something to buy, then tabbing away and forgetting about it entirely. Unfortunately for e-stores, a customer having an item in the cart doesn’t automatically mean a purchase. Especially if they’re shopping as a guest, leaving the cart can result in the loss of a sale. Keeping those impulse buyers on the hook can be vital for small online businesses competing with internet behemoths.

A great way to counter this is with a checkout timer. Many different services use this technique or a variation of this technique to encourage customers to buy quickly and not abandon their carts. Even though the product itself will not disappear, the urgency of the timer activates a potential buyer’s fear of missing out, making them more likely to finish the buying process. Amazon goes one step further with a deals section full of hundreds of timers constantly counting down until sales expire. The attractiveness of a deal mixed with the imperative of the timer makes for a potent tool against cart abandonment.

Another way to work around a distracted shopper is to send abandoned cart emails, reminding shoppers of the items they haven’t purchased. If the customer was truly interested in your product and just got distracted, this could be an easy (and automated) way to close the sale. A less direct version of this is ‘remarketing’, where the items left in the cart are used to inform targeted adds at the customer. Depending on how you design your conversion pipeline, either of these techniques could be successful in salvaging abandoned carts.

Delivering a focused, clean, and comprehensible user experience is invaluable in the world of online business. Across the e-commerce industry, it’s been estimated that checkout optimization can result in a 35% increase in conversion rates. Keeping these tips in mind, you can radically improve your user experience, vastly increasing your cart retention rate. Even small changes can make a big difference, so don’t hesitate to do the extra work that will maximize your e-store’s conversion rates.

The Top 4 Most Common E-commerce Marketing Mistakes (and how to avoid them)

 

On its face, running an online store pretty simple. People want a product, you have a product. You just have to get the word out about who you are, and what you’re selling. Make some accounts on social media to connect with your potential customers and watch the sales roll in, right?

Well, not exactly. The difference between failure and success for your e-commerce business is going to rest on a few crucial factors, and to be profitable you’ll need to make the right moves.

 

Here are the 4 most common e-marketing mistakes, and how to avoid them.

 

Not Investing in Your Branding and Marketing

It’s an old truism that you need to spend money to make money, and while you shouldn’t go overboard when you’re just starting out, this is especially true for marketing. When you’re working off a shoestring budget, it might be tempting to cut corners. Maybe you design your own logo or take product pictures in your bedroom. But unless you’re a graphic designer or a photographer, hire a professional. Today’s online shoppers are savvy at finding brands that provide consistent quality, and a strong indicator of a good company is the professionalism of their site and social media pages. Don’t wait until you think you have the money to present yourself as the great brand you know you are. Make the investment early, and customers will see the difference.

Another place new businesses often cut corners where they absolutely shouldn’t is in paid marketing. Sponsored posts Facebook and paid hits on Google are expensive, especially if you haven’t made a profit yet. But you won’t make that profit unless you get serious about reaching your potential customers through advertising. A study by the site Small Business Trends showed that 85% of small businesses cite word of mouth as the most important way of getting customers. The implication is clear: as a small business, building a happy and loyal customer base in the most important first step to success. Don’t skimp when it comes to making an attractive business with a solid online presence and reputation. It will pay dividends in time.

 

Not Knowing Where Your Customers Are Online

Even if you invest in a strong advertising campaign and awesome branding, you can still miss your customer base. A common mistake among e-commerce businesses is to only focus on the few big sites (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Amazon) when the people who actually want to buy your products surf the web elsewhere. Say for instance you run a store that sells artsy accessories targeted at women. Your potential customers probably have a Facebook account, and maybe an Instagram as well, but they might not spend as much time there as they do on sites like Tumblr or Pinterest. If you know that, you might think twice before putting all your advertising dollars into sponsored Facebook posts.

Knowing the internet habits of your target customer is very important when it comes to advertising you e-commerce business effectively. One powerful marketing technique for reaching customers is to create a persona. A persona is an archetype of one specific kind of target customer. Using research, interviews, and intuition, you build a picture of this person; who they are, what they value and look for, and where they hang out on the internet. The marketing platform Hubspot has an excellent crash course in persona creation as well as free templates. Using tools like personas to get in the headspace of your customers can indicate the best place to direct your e-commerce marketing funds outside of the mainstream sites.

 

Not Knowing Your Numbers

On the topic of spending your marketing dollars in smart ways, another common mistake small e-commerce businesses tend to make is not having a strong grasp of business metrics. Knowing the cost per sale, cost per customer acquisition and lifetime customer value for your business is vitally important for your success and growth. If you are able to accurately predict your net profit over a given period of time, you’ll be able to make the smartest growth plans for your company, and not burn out your finances.

Knowing your numbers is also important when communicating your vision to investors. When convincing someone to put their faith in your abilities, having the stats to back you up is a huge boost. In an interview with CNBC, ‘Shark Tank’ investor Kevin O’ Leary ranked knowing your numbers as an attribute that’s found “100 percent of the time in every pitch that actually gets funded.” Being solid on your own business plan is the best way to get others on board with your e-commerce business. If you don’t have that, it will be very difficult to run a successful business, and even harder to get investors to help it grow.

 

Not Hiring Employees

Finally, one killer of e-commerce businesses is not realizing when it’s time to grow. Finding success running a company out of your home office is a huge achievement, but to see big returns you need to be able to scale your business. This means finding people to takeover smaller duties and allow you to focus on the big picture. Hiring individuals who specialize in certain fields can also vastly improve your company by introducing new ideas or techniques that increase efficiency and profitability.

Once you reach a certain number of employees, it’s a good idea to formalize the hiring process. In an interview with Monster Hiring, Diana Goodwin, founder and CEO of Toronto-based AquaMobile recommends implementing a hiring protocol when you have just one or two employees per department. This allows you to create a recruiting process that scales early on, and helps avoid potential employees who aren’t fully invested in your company.

 

In Conclusion

Of course, these aren’t the only factors that dictate the success or failure of an e-commerce site or any small business. There are myriad components a business owner must juggle in order to run a successful business. But by keeping these tips in mind, and knowing what behaviors to avoid, you can grow your company more efficiently, and more effectively. Be aggressive, but smart with your marketing, advertising, and branding, and your customers will come. If you know your business’s capabilities, it will be easy to balance profit with growth and watch your company thrive.  

 

5 Killer Marketing Strategies to Improve Your Holiday Sales

Source: Shutterstock

As the holiday season rolls around, many companies take this opportunity to up their marketing game. Festive and fun marketing campaigns can attract new leads and retain the interest of continuing customers, helping you hit your marketing goals. Great examples of holiday marketing campaigns can be found everywhere from subscription product services like Dollar Shave Club, to B2B coworking companies like WeWork.

But even if you don’t have the same resources as an enterprise size company, that doesn’t mean you can’t make an awesome campaign. All it takes is creativity and a strong grasp of digital marketing best practices to reap the benefits of the holiday rush. Here are our top five strategies for improving your holiday sales, and hitting your marketing goals.      

 

 

1. Create video ads

Video ads are wonderful marketing tools, and the best ones manage to concisely relay all the information a customer needs to know while still brimming with personality. That said, people like to be entertained, so you don’t have to focus solely on your product. A fun and memorable holiday video can get your business’s name in the heads of potential customers, and drive leads and conversions. Luckily, creating videos is also super easy. There are many excellent, user-friendly services that offer free or cheap video creation tools to rock your content strategy. Consider making one this holiday season for quick, great-looking content.

 

2. Build Your Email List

The holidays are a proven time of increased conversions and sales. However, they are also a time of increased ad competition on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. That isn’t to say you should avoid these sites, but don’t rely on social media for your leads and conversions. Instead, focus on your email list. Email and remarketing strategies tend to have great returns, and with special holiday content, you can maximize the benefits. The best part is, you can edit preexisting email formats to fit any holiday! This means the sooner you start working on your campaign the better, so start up to two months in advance for the best chance to hit and exceed your marketing goals this season.

 

[bctt tweet=”Your giveaway needs to be attractive to the kind of people who will want your product or service. #holidaymarketing” username=”digital_gw”]

 

3.  Launch a Special Holiday Sale or Giveaway

One of the most popular winter traditions for companies of all varieties is the big holiday event. As people search for the perfect gift for their loved ones, offering a special deal can push a lead to a converted customer. Giveaways especially are excellent, enticing potential customers to give you their information in exchange for the possibility of a free product or service. This can help build out your email list, and lead to more conversions down the line. However, to ensure that you’re getting high-quality leads, make the giveaway relevant to your company. Giving away an iPad means nothing if you are an online cosmetics retailer. Your giveaway needs to be attractive to the kind of people who will want your product or service.

 

4. Set Up a Holiday Specific Landing Page

Now, pretty much any paid marketing and advertising strategy should already have a landing page, and the holiday season is a perfect time to have some fun with it. Interactive extras like holiday-themed games, quizzes, and puzzles can make your business memorable. Even if it doesn’t lead to an immediate conversion, the positive emotions a lead experiences interacting with your landing page will keep your company in mind for the future.

 

5. Focus on Your Value Proposition Not Your Product

This tip is true any time, not just the holidays, but it still bears mentioning. The secret to any strong marketing campaign is giving your potential customers the reasons they should come to your business rather than another providing the same product or service. Your content and ads need to push what makes you special, and how people can benefit from your product. Forcing people to dig through your site to get the information they need isn’t a great user experience. Telling them upfront why they should become a customer is a powerful and positive first impression, and doing it in a festive way is all the better.

 

[bctt tweet=”Your content and ads need to push what makes you special! #digitalmarketing #salestips” username=”digital_gw”]

 

With these strategies in mind, you can create a powerful holiday marketing campaign that helps you bring in new customers, and motivate continuing customers. Adding fun, themed content is a great way to engage customers and hit your marketing goals. Just remember to base your campaign in the proven methods of digital marketing, start early, make sure your customer knows why you are the best business for the job this holiday season.

 

For more information on marketing techniques, new industry developments, and tips on best practices, sign up for our newsletter to supercharge your campaign today.

 

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How to Create Effective Digital Marketing Goals

One of the most important moves a small business needs to make for their marketing strategy to be successful is to create strong marketing goals. Without a sense of what you want out of your campaign, it’s easy to follow an incomplete or directionless plan and wind up wasting time and money.

 

That’s why it’s important to create SMART objectives. SMART is handy mnemonic which stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Here’s a short breakdown of how each step is utilized:

 

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Specific means the objective is detailed and small enough in scope that the information gathered will be directly applicable to your business and marketing goals. Solving all your business’s problems and inefficiencies at once isn’t feasible. To create the best possible marketing strategy, you need to divide and conquer.

 

Measurable means ensuring your plan gathers qualitative or quantitative attributes that can be used to create useful metrics. Any plan to improve performance that doesn’t give a reliable way to measure said performance is a non-starter. Here, the aforementioned specificity is your friend, as it reduces the urge to cast your net too wide or vaguely with data collection.

 

Actionable means the information obtained from your campaign can be used to create meaningful change in your business to improve performance. This is somewhat related to the measurable ‘M’ in SMART, but it remains an important distinction. Not just any metric will do when determining whether your marketing strategies are helping you reach your business’s goals. They need to be metrics that directly apply to your projects, so you can improve them effectively.

 

Relevant means that the metrics measured will be able to inform the solution of a specific problem experienced by the marketer. When it comes to collecting data, it’s easy to get carried away and track every single point that could conceivably relate to your marketing goals. However, this is more likely to bog you down than help. Make sure you limit yourself to only the most relevant metrics when tracking the success of a project or campaign. It will make the work of hitting your marketing goals far easier in the long run.

 

And Time-bound means that the marketing goals must be constrained by a time period against which they can be evaluated. A test really isn’t a test if it doesn’t have a set endpoint where all the data can be tabulated, and success can be judged. It’s a slippery slope to marry yourself to an idea, then keep giving it one more month and one more month until it works out. A timeframe forces you to be discerning with your marketing strategy and helps you make the moves that will let you hit your marketing goals.

 

[bctt tweet=”SMART goals are not a hard and fast rule, but rather a best-practice outline for improving your company’s performance. #MarketingTIps” username=”digital_gw”]

 

These steps might sound a bit vague, and that’s because they are. SMART goals are not a hard and fast rule, but rather a best-practice outline for improving your company’s performance. That said, if you want a more detailed explanation of each step, Mindtools has a great page on the subject. But if you’re looking for more specific ways to create digital marketing goals, you would do well to start with these three questions:

 

1. What is your unique value proposition?
2. Who is your target customer?
3. Have you done a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis?

 

Answering these questions can give you a far better sense of your identity as a business, the core audience of your marketing campaigns, and how best to bring them your message. Especially after a SWOT analysis you will have a great list of areas for where to apply SMART objectives, both to limit your liabilities, and play to your strengths. Especially when working with limited resources, businesses need to know how much each customer is worth so they can set the most effective marketing budget.

 

But even with those more in-depth questions, SMART goals still might feel too theoretical to take seriously. However, there are many excellent practical ways to use business goals to inform marketing goals as long as you approach it the right way. To get a better sense of what constitutes good and poor marketing goals, here are some examples.

 

Good vs. Bad Marketing Goals

 

An example of a poor marketing goal could be something like,

“I want more web traffic, leads, and sales.”

This is a bad marketing goal because it is unspecific, not very actionable or relevant, and offers no timeline for improvement. A better marketing goal would be:

“I want 50,000 new online customers this financial year, at an average cost per acquisition £25 with an average profitability of £4.”

This is a very good goal because it is highly focused, provides a finite number of relevant metrics, will most likely result in actionable insights, and has a set time-frame. Although there are a lot of numbers there, they are all directly related to building a profile of the ideal customer.

 

Another example of a marketing goal that needs work could be:

“I want to rank as the top result on Google by this time next year.”

This is poor marketing goal because although it has a small scope, a single, clear metric, and a defined time period, there is no real reason to make it a goal. A good objective marks progress directly in relation to company success, not a shaky measure of internet presence. An improved version of this marketing goal could be,

“I want to achieve 5.5% online revenue contribution within a year.”

This objective is better because it directly names a desired result of the business’s online presence. When in doubt, it is never a bad idea to relate your marketing goals directly to a financial milestone. Just don’t get overambitious, and try and overload your objective with too many metrics. A good rule is to limit yourself to only an acquisition objective, a conversion objective, or an engagement objective. This will help you stay SMART and retain focus.   

 

If there is one main take away from all of this, that is to always keep an eye on the bottom line. SMART marketing goals exist to help businesses justify their marketing strategies, and refine their objectives to the most capital-minded form. If you don’t know what issue your objective addresses, what stats you want to achieve at the end, or how long the project would last, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. Using the techniques above, you can soon be well on your way to creating a powerful marketing strategy, based on solid and defined goals.

 

Would you like to learn more about digital marketing for SMEs? For information on innovative techniques, new industry developments, and best practices to drive conversions, subscribe to our newsletter.   

    

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How to Market Your Small Business on a Shoestring Budget

Small business marketing can be tough, especially when your business is in a competitive industry. A highly-targeted, multichannel marketing campaign is one of the best ways drive conversions and grow quickly, but the cost grows quickly too. If you are just starting out or are still trying to get a steady customer base, the investment might not be worth the reward just yet. Luckily, there is more than one way get your company’s name in people’s minds. With hard work and creativity, there are endless ways to market your small business on the cheap. Here are ten ideas to help build your customer base, and get people excited about your small business:

 

Network

Be sure to have your elevator pitch down and constantly find time to pitch your business. Talk to friends, neighbors, or strangers on the bus. The more people who know your name and your business, the more likely someone who needs your services will come to find you. A recent study by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that for 78% of startups, networking is vital for entrepreneurial success. Building connections with others in your community can lead to new customers, new best practices, and new business partnerships which leads to…  

 

Find Strategic Partnerships

Connect with other companies that offer complementary services to grow both of your businesses. Either with flyers, coupons, or shout-outs in each other’s social media posts and emails, linking up with other small businesses can vastly expand the base that hears your message. With the right partnership, a little outreach and a little reciprocation can yield lasting results.

 

Get Public Speaking Gigs  

 

There are myriad reasons to take to find local events that you can speak at. First, even if you aren’t paid you get massive legitimacy boost. Getting to speak as a professional in your field can establish you as a local expert and thought leader, and draw potential customers to your company. It also makes for a fantastic social media post. Second, you get to sell not only your company, but yourself. Putting a human face to a company name can make people more likely to remember it, and if you come off as charismatic and likable that will make people want to do business with you. Finally, speaking at gigs can net you great networking opportunities if you’re discovered by another SME owner who wants to start a partnership.

 

Get Social  

There’s really no marketing tool as powerful as social media. No matter what platform you go to, companies are finding ways to interact with and engage potential customers. A study by the Pew Research Center has shown a massive growth in social media use, and those number are only projected to rise. Taking advantage of this trend is necessary for growing businesses, and anyone interested in improving their small business marketing should add social media to their list of marketing tactics. Some great ways to engage potential customers are taking part in twitter chats, participating frequently in industry-specific Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups, and joining or even making a trendy hashtag on Instagram.

 

Get Involved

 

One of the best parts about being a small business is the ability to truly integrate with your community. Supporting local community causes like sponsoring a little league team or supporting a local library’s event is a powerful way to shape your image in people’s minds. Associating your company with generosity and care for the community will make your business attractive to potential customers, and is excellent marketing for any small business. While this is a slightly more capital-intensive venture, it makes a big statement about your values and can create loyal customers.

Foster Customer Loyalty

 

It’s far easier to keep longtime customers than it is to attract new ones. A study by The Nielsen Company found that 60% of consumers prefer by a new product from a known brand than try a new one. The important part is making sure they remember you when they need your service or product. A simple technique like targeted email marketing can be great for maintaining your existing base, and offering free coupons to longtime customers makes them feel valued by your company.

 

Ask for Referrals

 

Something people trust more than anything else is the word of a friend. If you want a quick and easy way to grow your business, ask your loyal customers to spread the word. You can also offer a reward in return for every referral. Different companies offer discounts, donations to charity, and even cold hard cash in exchange for referrals that result in a conversion. That said, a referral can be as simple as an email link a customer can send to a friend, or a post they can share on Facebook. Either way, referrals are powerful tools when you need to market on a budget.  

 

Make Special Offers

It’s an old truism that you need to give little to get a little, and the saying is no different with small business marketing. Coupons and giveaways are great at encouraging potential customers to check you out with the enticing prospect of a free service or product. Even better, if they like you they might become a loyal returning customer. Although this may seem like a loss in the short term, the list of benefits is long and the returns can be very high. Especially coupled with social media, giveaways and coupons can be the kick your company needs to reach new levels of success.

[bctt tweet=”Coupled with social media, giveaways and coupons can be the kick your company needs to reach new levels of success. #sme #marketing” username=”digital_gw”]

Write a Press Release

While maintaining your own social media page is important, the number of people who see your small business is still limited by your follower count and the number of people who find you in web searches. However, there is a way to reach a far larger audience for free and that is the press release. Especially for local reporters, compelling stories can be hard to come by. If you are hosting an event, giving a talk, or starting a fun giveaway, sites like Help a Reporter Out can connect you with free publicity. Otherwise, you can just call your local paper and pitch your press release. Unlike taking out an ad, this is a free way to drive buzz for your business and get your name on people’s minds.   

 

Know Your Market

Finally, when you are trying to start small business marking with a tiny budget, a computer is your best friend. Researching what your customers want only costs your time, and can inform you where to direct your marketing efforts. While buying data on certain subsets of customers is easier than ever, small business can take a more holistic approach. Looking at industry forums, searching in Yelp, and even trawling specific reddit pages can give you a good idea of who your customer base is and what appeals to them. It might not be what you thought, so have an open mind before you start, and carefully sketch out the image of your typical customer. This process will ensure that anything else you do is pulling the right people towards your business, and you aren’t just barking up the wrong tree.

 

But even when you are trying to minimize expenses, if you don’t have the experience or background in marketing it may be best to hire an agency that specializes in small business marketing. A professional marketer will know the most effective tricks and techniques to work within your means, and they can help you stretch every dollar (or euro). A small business marketing agency will also have access to tools and services otherwise outside your means, making a small business marketer a highly attractive choice to grow your customer base and drive conversions.

 

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Push Notification Marketing That Works

Push notifications are an extremely powerful, but often overlooked option in the digital marketer’s toolbox.  Unlike conventional methods of reaching customers online, push notifications work through a browser rather than from a database. This allows marketers to reach both identified and anonymous users, and specially schedule alerts to when those users are active. Best of all, push notifications are extremely easy to set up and customize, making them an obvious choice to add in any campaign with marketing automation. Here are some of the other distinct benefits of employing push notifications:

 

A New Channel of Communication

Push notifications can deliver a wide range of different messages and media types in an attention-grabbing way that users don’t often see. This makes them a great strategic addition to multichannel marketing campaigns. Targeted emails are good for calls to actions and value-adding content, and targeted banner ads are good for name recognition, but push notifications put your brand right in the user’s face when they are most likely to click. This, combined with a huge range of versatility greatly enriches your digital marketing campaign.

Make it Public or Make it Personal

Another exciting aspect of push notifications is their ability to bypass the barrier of needing personal information to send messages. This allows a site to send reminders about deals, provide important brand info, or rescue a forgotten cart without needing an email address. They can also include calls to action to convert visitors into leads. As for identified leads, push notifications can provide special offers and information to push them further down the buyer’s funnel right when they come online. An individualized approach, regardless of the user’s history with a brand. This is what makes push notifications a strong conversion tool at any point on the buyer’s journey.

[bctt tweet=”Push notifications are a strong conversion tool at any point on the buyer’s journey. #MobileMarketing” username=”digital_gw”]

Fine-Tuned Customization

Push notifications also have the massive benefit of not being confined to a single look or purpose. A company can choose what header they show, what links are attached, and whether to include icons, images, or gifs to enhance the user experience. There are also many options for the action the push notification drives. For instance, YouTube sends out short notifications to users whenever a channel they follow releases a new video, which attracts users back to the site.

The same idea can be used for a company looking to attract potential customers by flagging articles the reader might like based on previous visits. These could be advertised as push notifications and used to remind the user to return to the site. This concept also applies to retail sites. Push notifications can examine a user’s cookies, and use machine learning algorithms to recommend the products they’d be most likely to want. The possibilities are limited only by the marketer’s desired user action.

Advanced Marketing Automation

Beyond appearance and function, timing advertisements and CTAs also plays a large role in digital marketing. Push notifications shine on this front too, allowing the marketer not only to automate messages for when the user is active, but to control many other aspects as well. Contact lists can determine which users see which pushes, what time they see them, and even during which part of the year. This attention to detail and personalization for the customer is one of the reasons push notification have such high click-through rates.    

 

Simple to Implement

Finally, push notification marketing is remarkably easy to use. Where other marketing automation techniques may be difficult and unwieldy, it is easy to set up and customize a huge number of customized pushes with a few keystrokes. Services like SalesMango provide user-friendly setups to immediately add push notifications to a company’s digital strategy. With such obvious benefits and a low bar for entry, push notifications are the best way to grab user attention while online, and turn interest into conversions.

 

For more information on how to implement today’s cutting-edge marketing tools into your digital strategy, download our ebook. 

 

Trade Show Marketing: How to Guide

Whatever industry you are in, there is most likely a conference, trade show or convention that will be attending to promote your business.  Are you curious about the best way to promote your booth using online marketing tactics? This guide was put together to show you just that!

 

Pre-Show

 

Objective

Pre-show marketing increases the quality of the audience attracted to your booth as well as the likelihood that booth visitors turn into qualified leads.

Strategy

1. Video Views promoted on LinkedIn and Google Display Network.
   • What you need: A video to promote. Seeing as though you already have videos made, one of these can be used.
   • Why: 81% of companies used video for marketing in 2018, compared to 63% in 2017 and with good reason. Videos are more engaging than words. Where both video and text are available on the same page, 72% of people would rather use video to learn about a product or service.
     • LinkedIn: The social media platform just recently introduced videos as part of their advertising platform. This is a strong awareness touchpoint and allows you to cater your message to a very specific audience.
     • Google: The Google Display Network reaches 90 percent of people using the internet through millions of websites. It also allows advertisers to promote using text, video and photos.
   • How: Create a sponsored post on LinkedIn using video. Create a Google Display Network campaign targeting the conference search term. If you have a list of professionals that you need to reach you can also target this list of people. Link both of these ads to the landing page.

[bctt tweet=”Create a landing page designed to capture appointments for during the convention as part of your pre-show marketing strategy.” username=”digital_gw”]

2. Landing Page

• What you need: A landing page designed to capture appointments for during the convention.
• Why: This is where you highlight your attendance at the trade show and clearly state your calls to action.
• How: Make sure that you include the following, minimally: The event name, location, dates and a link to the event website

Be sure to also link to the event floor plan and highlight your booth if possible and also link to any relevant press releases that you may have.

And maybe most importantly, have a booking system in place so that people can schedule appointments with you during the trade show.

 

Paid promotion: As mentioned above, link the sponsored videos to the landing page. For organic promotion, you can also post about your event participation across your social media channels while linking to the landing page. Create a clear call to action for people to learn more or to secure their spot for a meeting during the convention. It could also be beneficial to create a second landing page specifically for media contacts.

 

KPI’s to measure

Reach

• Before the show, a key priority is to make attendees aware of your brand and your attendance. This is measured by seeing how many of your qualified targets you are able to reach.

Unique Visits to Landing Page

• Measure how many people clicked through ads to the landing page.

Video Views

• Measures how many people viewed your video. Usually counted as a percentage of the video viewed.

Appointments

• How many appointments are set up through the landing pages, emails, or company social media pages?

 

 

 

During the Show

 

Objective

Encourage interaction with your company through digital marketing. Make sure you have a lead capture system in place. This will allow you to build a personalized profile for the leads that you sale team talk to. Tell your prospects to expect a follow-up conversation from you after the convention. This will prep them to expect, and encourage them to open, the communication that you send.

 

Strategy

1. Digital record your booth, announcements, contests, or other interesting events during the event.
   • What you need: Photos, videos and quotes showing a behind the scenes look at the show and your product. It would also be beneficial to create your own branded hashtag for added awareness and engagement.
   • Why: The key purpose of posting about your attendance as an exhibitor is to give your audience a persuasive reason to stop by your booth.
   • How to execute:
     • Photos: Booth, salespeople, attendees, relevant events
     • Video: Of the event itself and showcasing the product

 

2.Promote a LinkedIn post targeting the geographical area during the event.

• What you need: Copy and photo/video about the show and your participation in it. Most show attendees want to learn more product information, so be sure to highlight yours. Source
• Why: It can be a way to push attendance to your booth by pushing attendance to the show while it is happening.
• How: Create a sponsored post and push paid promotion based on location.

 

3. Follow the hashtag of the show, and use a social listening tool to interact with attendees in real time.

• What you need: A social listening tool and someone available for digital marketing while the show is taking place.
• Why: It’s an easy win when it comes to promoting yourself to others interested in the event that you are attending. Plus, growing your audience helps your exposure in the long run.
• How: Use a social listening tool such as this one to find people actively talking about your brand, competitors, and the show in general. Then like the posts, comment on what is being said and/or follow these people as your brand.

[bctt tweet=”Use a social listening tool to find people actively talking about your brand, competitors, and the show in general. #tradeshow #marketingtips #smm” username=”digital_gw”]

 

KPI’s to Measure

• Mentions – Brand name or hashtag is mentioned online.
• Followers – Increase in social media followers during the show.
• Engagement – People clicking, commenting and liking your posts.
• Leads Generated

 

 

Post-Show

 

Objective

Segment leads and create appropriate marketing funnels using marketing automation.

Strategy

After the show, it’s all about following up with your warm leads via marketing automation. Unless of course, for some reason, you prefer to do this manually.

What you need: A marketing automation system. Popular ones are Hubspot and SalesManago.

Why: Having a marketing automation process in place ensures that none of your freshly gathered leads goes bad. Instead, you can segment them and automatically follow up with them appropriately.

With a marketing automation system in place, you can personalize their buyer’s journey while also saving you time through automation.

How: Set up a list of hot and cold leads and establish a marketing funnel for each. Since 30-50% of leads aren’t ready to buy when they first learn about you and your company, so it’s good to follow up with them after the show. That’s why turning these leads into customers should be your goal in the month following the trade show event.

 

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Top 5 Tools of 2018 to Rock Your Digital Strategy

The rapid growth of digital marketing has changed the way companies reach consumers. Powerful social media marketing, email campaign tools, and advanced ROI analytics are now available to anyone who wants to expand their brand. However, small businesses are far less likely to have the team and background necessary to fully utilize these marketing innovations. In response, a growing number of services has sprung up to target that niche, providing robust, easy-to-use solutions that cover a wide range of needs. Here are the top 5 tools we’ve found to rock your digital strategy in 2018.

Canva – Graphic Design

Canva makes graphic design easy by providing thousands of ready-made, professional-quality templates for users to work from. Every template is highly customizable, letting users change the font and colors to suit their preferences. Canva also supplies an extensive library of photos and clip art, and even allows users to import their own images for easy branding. This makes the service ideal for social media marketing, content branding, and press releases. Additionally, while already boasting a user-friendly layout, Canva provides a huge library of tutorials for the platform.

The free version of the Canva shows off many of its best features but is severely limited. However, for only $12.95/month, businesses can enjoy the service’s full capabilities, including team functionalities, user-created templates, and the ability to upload custom fonts for better branding. For companies who want strong visuals for their social media campaigns, but can’t afford a graphic design department, Canva is by far the best choice.

Animoto – Video

Animoto is a remarkably simple drag-and-drop video editor for quick, stylish content. Like Canva, the service comes with a host of templates but allows the user to create their own as well. Customization is also easy, with a large library of images, fonts, and music to choose from. Animoto does not require any previous experience, making the service perfect for the marketer looking create engaging content for social media without hiring an outside contractor.

For the fast majority of businesses, the best pricing package will be the ‘professional’ level. At $22/month, it allows users to replace the Animoto watermark with their own branding, unlock far more customization options, and even license their videos to consumers. Overall, the service provides an easy way to make impressive content without any experience and is well worth the cost of providing interesting, conversion-driving content.

 

MailChimp – Email Campaigns and Newsletters

MailChimp is currently the largest marketing automation platform, and for good reason. The service makes it easy to coordinate email campaigns, integrate with social media marketing, and even collect data on clicks and ROI. MailChimp also provides a feature allowing marketers to run their data through e-commerce databases to better target prospects. On top of all that, the layout is clean and intuitive, allowing marketers to quickly grasp the tools of the platform.

The free version of MailChimp is a powerful email campaign platform, with a truly impressive range of tools. But while the free version does include almost every feature in the paid version, it strictly limits the number of contacts a business can save, and the number of emails it can send per month. Starting at only $10/month, however, the contact and emails limits are dropped, and some extra features are unlocked. Given the range and depth of the service, MailChimp is ideal for almost any size of business looking to run a powerful email campaign.

 

Hootsuite – Social Media Marketing and Automation

Unlike other entries on this list, the Hootsuite platform explicitly targets professional marketers. The service has a detailed focus on social media, with tools including automated post schedules, content curation, and social ROI analytics. Hootsuite also has team collaboration capabilities, with checks to ensure only approved content goes live even when multiple people are posting. Finally, the service allows in-depth social media trawling to see what people are saying about a business, its competitors, and relevant hashtags and topics.

Depending on the needs of a business, and the depth and breadth of the social media campaign, a business can pay anywhere from $19/month to $599/month. For a small operation with a 2 or 3-person marketing team, the best deal is the ‘team’ pricing level at $129/month. This is a far greater investment than most entries on this list, but for a professional social media marketing platform of this caliber, the ROI is worth the cost.

Clickfunnels – Create Marketing & Sales Funnels

Clickfunnels is sold as a cohesive, all-inclusive, and hands-off service for businesses with little to no marketing experience. Users can choose from a range of different funnel templates depending on their goals, and customize the individual pages. The service includes Facebook and email automation, a drag and drop webpage editor, and A/B split testing for landing pages, providing a well-rounded suite of tools for new marketers. Clickfunnels can also be integrated with third-party email services such as MailChimp to expand its capabilities.

The pricing package best suited to small businesses costs $97/month, with limited funnels, landing pages, and landing page traffic. This might seem pricey for an entry-level service, especially with restrictions on some tools, but for a business with no marketing department, it could be worth the investment. Clickfunnels provides an impressive toolset, covering every part of the digital marketing process, and making it easy to drives conversions.

This post first appeared on B2C

 

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