5 Simple Marketing Tips for Improved Brand Visibility in 2018

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | 5 Simple Marketing Tips for Improved Brand Visibility in 2018 | Marketing and SalesFor some time now, having an online presence has been crucial in business. As more consumers turn to the internet to shop, search and even socialize, ranking #1 on Google can put you in front of your competitors and increase conversions. While the internet proves far more competition than ever before, this ease of virtual accessibility can be both a dream and a curse. While it expands reach, allowing companies to access a global market, the increase in opposition means it’s also far more difficult to engage your demographic. Plus, 2018 means new ways of marketing your business digitally, as our ever-increasing world becomes more dependent on technology.

However, even in an ever competitive space, there are many ways to give your brand the advantage, so that your company has a fighting chance. Here are five marketing tips to increase your brand’s visibility this year.

Maintain Your Blogging Schedule

In 2017, many companies tried their hand at blogging, incorporating a blog into their business’s website. By doing so, you’re allowing yourself, as an employer, to become a trusted and knowledgeable authority figure in your industry; writing and publishing content that caters to the needs of your audience, whether it’s for your customers or clients, improves your business’s reputation and makes your business seem more reliable. You’ll become a reliable and trusted source for certain areas of business, and if your posts are well-written, engaging and offer something of worth, people may share your blog posts, organically elongating your reach.

Throughout 2018, you should continue to maintain your blogging schedule (posting at least 2 or 3 times a week). According to Hubspot, companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got 3.5x more traffic than companies that published a mere 0-4 monthly posts; 53% of marketers also admitted that blog content creations are their top inbound marketing priority. Therefore, create a schedule where your team continues to blog regularly so that your business can continue to publish consistent posts.

Choose the Best Social Media Platforms

There are many social media networks up for grabs. However, you should only select the ones that relate to your audience and key demographic. Trying to tackle them all is hugely time-consuming and can cost unnecessary money. By selecting the key social media platforms for your business, you will generate true results from your marketing efforts.

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the go-to for many businesses, and they seem set to continue being popular throughout 2018, but if your business cannot thoroughly utilize them, you should look for alternatives. For instance, Instagram is a social media platform tailored for photography; this is ideal for fashion labels, artists and even website designers, but for SEO companies, it may not be so fruitful. Facebook and Twitter, on the other hand, can help most companies, and all businesses should set up profiles with both platforms. Both Facebook and Twitter are also ideal for sharing your blog posts with customers, helping to improve a brand’s visibility.

When looking for a social media platform that drives the best conversion rates, you should consider the following:

  • Facebook continues to be the most popular, with over 1.94 billion users and drives a conversion rate of 1.85%.
  • Instagram’s popularity is continuing to rise and is becoming the number social media platform for e-commerce businesses with a conversion rate of 1.08%.
  • YouTube produces a conversion rate of 1.16%, Twitter 0.77% and even Pinterest brings in a rate of 0.54%.

Also, there are various tools you can use to make your brand stand out through the above social media channels. Software such as Clickfunnels and Leadpages allow you to create beautiful landing pages that effectively advertise your products and services to consumers. These software tools include templates for you to quickly and easily create stunning pages that will excite your prospects and turn them into subscribers and customers.

Master Instagram Stories

It’s predicted that by the end of 2018, nearly half of all Instagram users will be fully utilizing Stories, meaning brands should grasp this particular practice and master the art of crafting and engaging and interesting Instagram Story. Stories are ideal for businesses to stay on top of people’s minds, create a digital community and publishing exclusive behind-the-scenes or launch footage. Instagram Stories is perfect for engaging with Gen Zers, who are 22 years old or below.

The Rise of Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR), has impacted mobile gaming with the likes of Pokémon Go. However, Apple announced that the iPhone 8 and X would incorporate a chip that allows the phones to provide the users with AR experiences that are likely to soon appear in social media. Although AR is still being developed and is a new feature, it’s likely to make headway. It’s conceivable that brands will soon be able to project their products into the homes of social media users.

Continue with SEO

Google is continuously releasing algorithms in the hopes of providing relevant and useful search results to their users. The latest algorithm was Google’s Fred, which saw the end of overtly ‘spammy’ websites, which profited from adverts rather than a user-friendly experience. If you’re wondering how to market your product on Google using SEO, then businesses are expected to cater to the user, rather than for profit, while incorporating the new SEO trends for 2018. For instance, long tail keywords are more effective than ‘caveman keywords’ due to the increased popularity of voice search through Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. It’s forecasted that in 2020, at least 50% of all searches are going to be through speech or images. How can you ready your business for this, then?

Instead of imputing broken sentences such as “best Italian restaurant New York,” people are more likely to speak in fuller sentences like “what’s the best Italian restaurant in New York City?” Therefore, the use of punctuation and more conversational language will be a game changer in the business of SEO.

Technology and digital trends tend to adapt and change frequently, and so businesses have also to adapt accordingly. It’s imperative that your business keeps tabs on the trends as they are as successful as they are fleeting. While many continue to prosper, 2018 could bring in many new digital marketing trends no one is prepared for, making others extinct. Remain knowledgeable, and your brand’s visibility will continue to increase.

5 Ways To Use Content Marketing To Grow Your Company

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Content marketing is a great way of creating brand awareness and improving your business’s credibility. This can attract new leads and potentially generate sales. As the name ‘content marketing’ implies, this method of marketing is all about generating content whether that be written or recorded on video. Most people absorb this content online nowadays. Here are just a few examples of content marketing.

Show off your expertise with a business blog

A great way to build credibility as a professional is to start a blog giving advice on various matters related to your business. This could be advice to clients or fellow business owners. The aim of a blog is not to be promotional – people won’t read a blog which is fifty posts about how great your product is. You should instead focus on being informative. It can be a great chance to educate your clients or give your opinion on certain arguments within your field. For example, if you run a estate agent business, you could blog tips about how to get a good mortgage rate, tips on organising moving day and advice on home improvements. It’s a great way of building respect in your field and could convert several customers. There are many advice columns out there on starting a business blog such as this one Should You Start A Business Blog?

Gain credibility with a Youtube channel

Those that prefer public speaking to writing may prefer to start a vlog (you can do both). A vlog is made up of regular video content. As with business blog post, these should be largely non-promotional and informative if you want to get views. Like a business blog, this can gain you credibility. It’s worth investing in a good camera and microphone as this will help to reinforce your professional image.

Try white paper marketing

White paper marketing is a means of offering an informative guide to your business. This can help to get people interested in what you do. Articles such as White Paper Marketing: How To Create Quality Leads Online Consistently offers information on how to create such content. This content shouldn’t be promotional in tone and should read as if you were writing a lengthy magazine article on a product. Similar forms of content include press releases and instructional posts.

Encourage positive online reviews

Positive reviews can help a build good reputation for your business and also help generate sales. These reviews cannot be written by you, although you can encourage others to review you. Lots of sites such as Trip Advisor offer the chance to write user reviews. You can also consider contacting publications and getting professionally reviewed.

Write an e-book

Want to be respected in your field? Being able to claim that you’re a published author could achieve this. Getting a book published is easier than ever before due to the rise of e-books. Such a book could be an autobiographical rise to success or it could discuss a topic within your field. Again, don’t make it promotional. Whilst you can name-drop your business in there, people will be more inclined to read it if it’s informative or entertaining.

Which Lead Tactics Work Best

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The worst number in business is one. If you have just one source of leads, it is only a question of time when the price per click goes up or the targeting options change or the viewership of the publication changes.

Because of this, you want to have several lead generation mechanisms in place. This way, if something happens to one of them, the other ones will continue working for you and generating new leads. This article will introduce you to five tactics you can use in your business.

1. Media Buying

Media buying is the process of negotiating and purchasing advertising time and space.

The secret to successful media buying lies in knowing your audience. One of the biggest mistakes a marketer can make is to advertise a niche offer to a broad market. The ad campaign will be expensive and the response will be small. This is not how you want to run your campaigns.

You need to know the age of your buyers, their gender, level of education, income, family status and interests. You also want to know what publications they read, how they spend their free time and what websites they visit.

Once you have this data, you can start making intelligent choices about how and where you can advertise to them. One of your goals should be to find media that are not obvious to your competition. This way you will be able to purchase space and time at reasonable rates (because the competition is not yet there) and be the only advertiser in your category in that media.

If there are certain media that you would like to use for advertisements, but can’t afford, call them or email them and tell them how much you can pay. Often, you’ll be able to get a last-minute offer if one of their advertisers pulls out and they have some free time or space. Many media are very negotiable as to how much they will sell advertising for. This is not something they advertise upfront, but if you negotiate, you will often be able to get a great deal.

2. Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is a great way to market products and services because in affiliate marketing you don’t have to pay for advertising upfront and you don’t have any risks.

Typically, you pay for advertising or lead generation activities first. These activities generate leads. Then, you have to do the work to convert the leads into paying customers. If the work is successful, only then you get your money back and a return on your investment.

This is not how things work in affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketers do all the work for you. In exchange, you pay them a percentage of the sales or a pre-agreed amount per sale for all the sales that they make.

The best way to use affiliates is to scale your sales systems that are already working. Nobody wants to pay money to test something that is not proven. While you may get affiliates to test your offers, if they lose money, they will not work with you again. If, however, you have a system that works and need more leads or need to convert more leads, then working with affiliates is a great way to go. You will make more money and your affiliates will make money, which will make them want to work again with you in the future.

3. Social Media Marketing

Today there are all kinds of social media, from Pinterest to Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn. However, this does not mean that you have to be everywhere. You need to be where your customers are. If you are selling a consumer product, you probably do not need to be on LinkedIn. If you are a high-end executive recruitment boutique, then being on Pinterest may not be a good strategy for you.

Find out where your customers spend their time. Then, get in front of them.

The good news is that social media today offer a variety of tools and ways to reach prospects and existing customers.

Using Facebook Pixel or Google Tag Manager, you can mark everyone who visits your website or certain pages on your website. You can also create audiences based on sequences of pages that people visit, videos they watch, elements of pages that they click on and parts of the pages they scroll to. Then, you can retarget these visitors with custom ads on social media and other websites. The opportunities for marketers today are virtually unlimited.

4. SMS

SMS or text messaging can be a very effective way to target customer but you need to be very careful with how you use it. Today most people use text messaging to communicate with their friends and family. They don’t get a lot of advertising messages via text. For this reason, you want to only text them about something important. Reminders typically fall into the important category and work really well. For example, you can send a reminder about a webinar. You can also send a reminder about a demo or a sales call that you have coming up.

You can also offer your existing customers to notify them via text about special sales and events.

At the same time, sending regular updates and marketing messages via text messaging is probably not a good idea. Most people check their text messages very frequently and if you are sending them messages that they don’t find valuable, they may feel as if you are spamming them and interrupting them with no good reason.

5. Ringless Voicemail

Ringless voicemail is a relatively new technology, which is why it is extremely effective.

Ringless voicemail works only will cellphones. According to studies, over 90% of adult Americans own a cellphone, which means that you can reach virtually any person with ringless voicemail marketing.

Ringless voicemail works by completely bypassing cellular networks. It contacts the cellular provider directly via a business landline call and drops a message on the server of the cellular provider. The provider then moves the message to the server space of the recipient and notifies the recipient about the message. This way there is no call made to the recipient, no charges to the recipient and no interruptions.

When the recipient checks his or her voicemail, he or she can listen to the message. The message can be as long or as short as the sender likes. This means that you can create ringless voicemails that are really effective.

A ringless voicemail can have options that connect the recipient to a sales person or drive the recipient to a website. By using these options you can measure the ROI from your ringless voicemail campaigns and make sure that you are spending your marketing dollars wisely.

Why Video is Such an Important Part of a Media Campaign

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Running a successful and effective media campaign requires some careful forethought and planning, as well as a good understanding of what it is that you want to achieve and what your target audience expects. Different audiences will require different approaches to effectively convey your messages. They will respond to different forms of media in different ways and it is crucial that these distinctions are appreciated if your campaign is to be successful. However, regardless of the specifics of your media campaign, you will almost certainly need to incorporate video elements to effectively sell your message.

For this article, we have put together a list of just some of the reasons why video is an especially powerful and important part of any media campaign, an aspect that you can ill-afford to overlook when planning your campaign, and something that needs to be at the front of your mind throughout the entire process.

Universal Power

There are a number of reasons why video is such an effective and universally powerful way of conveying a message. Because it is a medium with such a broad reach, and almost endless potential, video has been used to convey all kinds of messages and has been very successful in instigating both large-scale changes, and changes in individual’s behavior. For proof of just how effective video is in conveying messages to entire demographics with great effect, consider public information campaigns.

Public information campaigns are used to inform large groups, sometimes entire nations, of changes that affect everyone. They have proven to be a highly effective way of doing so. To learn more about how media campaigns have been so effective in changing behaviors on a large scale, check out this article on behavior change myths.

Videos Boost Conversions

Videos have the potential to make you some serious cash and they are by far the most effective medium through which to advertise. Some studies suggest that they can boost conversions by as much as 80%. The effectiveness of video over other mediums is not as surprising when you consider that our most dominant sense is our vision. The majority of the information that our brain processes is visual, and it is visual information that we are most adept at interpreting.

They Offer an Excellent ROI

When questioned for a survey, over 80% of businesses said that the videos in their media campaigns lead to what they considered to be a good return on their investments. Producing a high quality, professional looking video isn’t cheap or quick, but it is incredibly effective and whatever money you spend you can expect to make back, and then some. Videos don’t have to be perfect in order to be effective. They only have to convey your message effectively and in a way that your audience responds well to.

Videos are an important part of any media campaign. When used well, they all but guarantee a boost in sales, as well as providing the best medium through which to convey your message. They are a worthwhile investment and one of the safest that you can make in the course of putting together your campaign.

Why Your Premises Should Emulate Your Brand

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In the twenty-first century, offices are much more than a set of booths, each one with a tower computer and a waste paper bin. Working environments are now much more user-friendly with opportunities for collaborative working and they are designed to consider the needs of employees to a much greater extent. Your office should emulate the ethos of your brand, be an open, welcoming and bright space, and be the optimum area for the most productive working. Take a look at how you can create your perfect premises no matter what industry sector you work in.

Location

If you run an advertising agency, you need to be in the thick of a city center environment; close to the big brands, next to excellent transport links and amongst other like-minded businesses. Clients will be attending your offices for meetings, to view your latest presentations and to brainstorm ideas for their next marketing campaigns. It’s vital that they have confidence in your credentials the moment they work through the door. Your interior needs to be sleek, modern and a hive of activity. City center premises can be older and more traditional, or you could opt for an office in a more minimalist and modern building depending on the ethos of your brand.

Space

How you use the interior space is up to you. You could opt for a more traditional zonal system where you cater to those colleagues who need to knuckle down alone in more private spaces as well as providing meeting rooms for those brainstorming sessions and collaborative meetups. You may forego the tried and tested cubicles, for a more open, transparent office environment. If you’re implementing something new, you’ll need to utilize the services of an outfit like BCI Worldwide international logistics company who can kit out a brand new office without you having to lift a finger. They use intuitive project management systems and logistics platforms to track all tasks required throughout the lifecycle of your project installation. By outsourcing a project like this, you are tapping into external expertise and networking with fellow professionals to achieve your desired office environment.

Technology

For some businesses, the latest technology is vitally important. For others, it is more of a luxury. Don’t get too hung up on having the biggest, best and latest gadgetry. What’s more important is the staff team that you surround yourself with and the minds that you manage to merge together to think outside the box and create initiatives that enable your business to grow. Having an attractive premises and office environment will hook those perfect candidates attending an interview for a role within your company. They’ll be eager to work in a dynamic space and one that is conducive to being at the forefront of your particular industry.

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Your premises can reflect your brand in the most subtle of ways. If you are an honest, transparent and collaborative company, show this off in your office space. By doing this, you can reflect your company’s core values and promote your business vision effectively.