Often, topical current events used in a marketing campaign can be a great way to entice a targeted demographic. Not only does the audience immediately associate with the current event being highlighted, they also subconsciously associate the marketing strategy with something new; new ideas, new products and services, etc.

One of the main questions when using current events in a marketing strategy is: where do you draw the line when it comes to subject matter, and how can you avoid backlash and controversy from the intended audience?

There are a few rules of thumb when it comes to avoiding potentially sensitive topics.

  • Avoid religion- regardless of the light in which religion is portrayed in a marketing strategy, it can polarize the target market and turn customers away. Just ask the people at Federici Ice Cream.
  • Don’t mention politic unless the campaign is political in nature- This one might be harder to navigate than religion. Not only should you avoid favoring a political party or candidate in your strategy, but you should avoid directly aligning with any political platforms as well. People are often very passionate about their political affiliations, and the best way to turn a potential client away is to offend their sense of right and wrong.
  • Try not to make light of death- People are sensitive about death, and taking it less than seriously is an easy way to turn off the target audience. For example, try to recall the Priceline commercial with William Shatner where he scales a hotel to find his daughter and a young man in a room. After a sly insinuation by the young man, Shatner tosses him out of the hotel to seemingly plummet to his death. The creators of that commercial knew they couldn’t leave the scene on that note, and ended the ad with a shot of the young man landing, alive and intact, in the hotel’s swimming pool. Without that shot, the ad might have been taken as gruesome and violent, but the shortest of clip of the young man landing in the water makes all the difference to the audience.

There are certainly more areas that should be considered off-limits when creating a marketing strategy and campaign, but they are more common sense than these. Avoid religion, politics, and death, and your marketing strategy will run much smoother and intrigue a larger target audience.

Search lists are the proverbial bread and butter for businesses of all types in today’s modern landscape. Thanks to how easy it is to develop a high quality website for your business, the online marketplace as become more crowded than ever. One of the fastest and most efficient ways to stand out from your competition is to make sure that your site is ranking highly for relevant keywords in your area. If you sell small electronics in Toledo, for example, you need to make sure that your company’s site is ranking as close to the top of the list as possible when people search for “small electronics” and “Toledo” in your area. To move up on search lists, you need to keep a few key things in mind.

Search engine giant Google uses a very specific algorithm to determine the order in which sites appear in search lists. That algorithm is largely confidential, which helps prevent certain businesses from taking advantage of the system. There are, however, a few proven methods that you can use. One of those methods involves making sure that you’re updating your site with not only high quality content but with new content on a regular basis. Doing so will attract more visitors, which will reflect highly on your site and increase your ranking as a result.

Another way to move up on search lists is to make sure that relevant keywords are actually in the copy on your site. When Google’s digital spiders crawl your site looking for keywords, they use that information when search rankings are determined. If you were a small electronics dealer, you would want to make sure that “small electronics” and similar keywords are present in the text on your site in the most natural way possible.

This is business marketing, not personal chat. That is what you don’t post for marketing and promotion. The function of social media for business purposes lies in nurturing the ability to enter into new relationships relevant to your business. The objective is not specifically to directly push a product or service. It is to expand reach.

As in all relationships that you want to nurture, you provide what they want. Promotion of your brand with social media is about providing content that has value to your audience. They will make the connection and your brand will be enhanced without any direct sales attempt on your part.

But while you do not want to support personal chat, you do want to be social, in as much as you contribute to relevant conversations. The most important factor in the success of this marketing strategy will be in how frequently you interact and post content.

Post benefit-based information that draws the reader to your business website. Information about new features or changes to your product/service is excellent. So are pricing discounts and special offers with promotional codes to be entered on your site.

Provide informative content or link to external content to offer needed information in your industry. That may seem to be a monumental task, but finding such information is no longer all that difficult. As they say, there’s an app for that.

Look to any of the following for help in finding relevant content on the Web. SproutSocial.com, Mention App, and Feedly.com all locate content for specifically targeted subject areas. You can also contract with content professionals to provide content that you specify. Whatever you post, know that the important part of this process is in the establishment of trust and ongoing relationship with your clients. The conversation is of paramount importance, not individual sales. Those sales will follow. You need to focus on developing a community.

In today’s modern climate, it’s difficult to do business without some type of web presence. Having a website is hugely important, as it allows readers and potential clients to find out more information about the product or service that you’re offering even if someone isn’t physically in your business to greet a walk-in customer or answer the phone for a sales call. Understanding the most important pages on your website, however, will go a long way towards helping you improve your design and get the types of responses that you were expecting all along.

Home Pages

These are some of the most important pages on your website because they are often the first thing that potential customers and clients see when they attempt to make contact. There’s an old saying that goes “you can only make one first impression, so make it a good one.” This is especially true in the world of business-related websites.

Your home page should always include information about the product or service that you’re offering, as well as about your objective. It should be clear and concise and should have an introductory paragraph that allows the reader to first experience what you have to offer in a way that is pleasing to them.

Landing Pages

Landing pages are the parts of your website that you use to convert leads into sales. A lead is someone who arrived at your site from an external destination. While they’re there, you want them to buy whatever product or service that you’re offering. That’s where a landing page comes in.

A landing page should always have a clear call to action and should include some type of offer. A successful landing page will be solely focused on that one thing above all else: the offer in question. It should include headlines, plenty of white space and a large number of action words to entice the reader to make the sale in question.

The goal of every marketing campaign is to be successful. In order to actually be as successful as you would like, there are a few factors that you will want to think about. This will help you to have the best results from your next marketing campaign.

Diversity- the Heart of the Marketing Campaign

No marketing campaign can be successful when there is only one method of advertising. You need to find different ways to reach out to your prospects. This could be in the form of landing pages, Facebook advertisements, direct mail and many other aspects. The more you do, the greater your audience will be.

Make Sure You Target Your Campaign

The worst thing you can do with a marketing campaign is make it too generic. While this may seem that it will make your product or service appealing to more people, it can actually be detrimental. Think about who your target market is. The more detailed you can make this, the easier it will be to not only create a targeted message but find the correct ways to reach them.

Continuity

You also want to make sure that all the different advertisements you are doing for your marketing campaign work together. It can throw off the consumer if seems like you have different calls to action. By creating something that is uniform throughout the entire campaign, you will find your return on investment is greater.

Know What Success Means to You

Before you can determine the success of your campaign, you need to know how you will measure this. It is different for each campaign. It could be capturing information for leads, it could be sales or it could even be increasing traffic to your website. This will allow you to properly gage the success.

Professionals are Your Friend

The best thing you can do if you want to get the most success is find a marketing professional to help you with the campaign. Make sure they are knowledgeable with your industry so you can get the best results.

Getting referrals for your small business is one way of growing your company. In order to benefit from referrals, you need to build your customer base. This can be accomplished by providing excellent services and products.

Building solid business relationships is the foundational block of any small business. Any one of your current contacts can refer you to others. Rather than wait for them to volunteer, make an effort to ask for the referrals you need. The following offers more practical advice on how to build your referral network.

Developing Referral Building Habits

According to Ray Silverstein, President of PRO (President’s Resource Organization), it’s to your advantage to develop good referral-building habits. You can do this by revamping your thinking about asking and being more aggressive in your referral pursuit. Proactive referral habits include:

Integrating referrals into your initial agreements with new customers
Asking for referrals every time you receive a customer compliment on your services
Using client meetings as opportunities to ask for referrals
Setting weekly goals for getting referrals
Being specific in the type of referrals you ask for
Capitalizing on your networking opportunities to get referrals
Give and it shall be given

As your small business grows, you will come in contact with highly potential people whom you can refer to others. Giving referrals generously yourself when the opportunity arises will open doors for others to respond in kind. Be on the lookout for occasions to bring contacts or business associates together for mutual benefit and see how it reciprocates in your favor.

Another way of giving is to offer rewards to customers who provide referrals regularly such as special discounts, free services or products, etc. Don’t forget to thank every customer and referral for their time, trust and support. Showing genuine appreciation to your customers and treating them with care will win their confidence and trust as loyal clientele.

Most business owners are not aware of the positive impact responsive web design can have on their business. The way customers are searching for products and services is changing. Consumers want a response to their questions, and answers to their problems. Modern technology such as the internet provides consumers with quick responses in record time.

Mobile technology is perhaps one of the quickest and most effective ways for businesses and consumers to communicate. Consumers can respond to emails, job requests, and conference calls regardless of where they are.

What Does This Mean for Business

This means that more and more customers are using the Internet to find what they want. These customers range in the category of business people, students, professionals and everyday housewives. Very few people are confined to a desktop computer. This is the age of technology.

Businesses Need to Invest in the Future of Their Business

There is “Office on the Go” which is what many people are using to keep in touch with their jobs and to keep an eye on their competitors. Nearly every mobile device being introduced to the market today, offers some type of responsive web design software. Consumers are able to make purchases, pay bills, and schedule their next dental appointment, from their mobile devices.

Responsive web designs allow consumers the freedom to search the website, request assistance and ask questions. Open communication is the key for businesses that rely on customer responses. This means that customers can enter a website from any mobile device and use any screen size. Businesses that are not using responsive web designs are losing out on customers, sales and profits.

The marketing strategies that work best for any company depend on the dynamics of the business, but direct mail is a useful way to capture the attention of potential customers. Most companies can benefit from using direct mail, regardless of the products or services that are provided by the business.

Focusing on the Target Audience

A key reason that direct mail works for any business is that it focuses on a particular group or target audience. That means that you are only sending out mail to appropriate individuals on your mailing list or in a particular area.

Targeted marketing is an effective way to obtain new customers because the flyer, brochure or coupons that you are sending out are reaching people who need the products or services that you provide.

Adding Personal Elements

The problem that many companies can face is providing a personal element to the business. If your company is struggling with personalization, then direct mail can be a realistic solution. When you send out a postcard, you can put the name of the individual at that address. It automatically makes the advertisement more personal and reaches out to individuals who may feel that businesses are lacking a personal touch.

Easy Measurements

The personal element and the targeted mailing is only the beginning. Direct mail is also easy to measure based on the number of homes that receive the mail. You can determine the effectiveness of your marketing strategy based on the inquiries and sales that you receive.

Every business can benefit from direct mail, but the decision to implement the strategy depends on your goals and your understanding of how the process works. Direct mail is an effective way to reach your target audience with an element of personalization, and it can help improve your sales.

[Source: USPS]

Knowing who is visiting your business website, where they are coming from and what demographic they fit in can all prove extremely valuable for your company. With this sort of information, you can alter your online marketing campaign, push certain products and adjust how you reach your customers. These sorts of features are all possible through the assistance of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics provides you with an in depth analysis of your website’s performance. Throughout the day, you have visitors coming from all corners of the globe. You need to how these visitors came about your website. They might have arrived through the use of a search engine, social media links, typing your site’s URL directly into the Internet browser or through some other location. Knowing where individuals originate from allows you to change how you market. If you see the majority of your visitors come from a Facebook link, you can pump more of your marketing budget into Facebook and increase your exposure. You can also see what keywords visitors type in to find your website through search engines and make the necessary adjustments as well.

With the assistance of Google Analytics, you can directly monitor just about every little element associated with your website. Knowing how your website is performing, how your advertisements are performing and if you need to place your marketing budget in a different area of the net are all going to help increase the number of visitors you receive. You just need to make sure and take advantage of the analysis you receive from Google. Far too many businesses fail to look over this information and adjust their website accordingly, but this knowledge, from what keywords work to visitor origins, can improve your website’s production.

An estimated 74 percent of customers get frustrated when ads that are featured for them do not seem to have anything to do with their personal interests. That alone should be enough reason for companies to realize the importance of personalization, but the benefits do not stop there. When companies take the time and energy to personalize the advertisements they are sending out to their customers, companies get more for their investment and customers receive information about products and services that are helpful for them. It’s a win for everyone involved.

Improving Conversions

Ads that are personalized have a much better chance of netting customers. Customers enjoy feeling appreciated and singled out by companies, just like they appreciated individualized service in a store. Personalized emails, for example, were found to improve conversion rates by 10 percent alone. Customers are being bombarded by marketing and advertisements on nearly every platform. Creating ads that are personalized to the individual user means that these marketing tools will stand out to customers by being actually useful.

Improving Customer Retention

Personalization of advertisements is a fantastic first step towards building a relationship with the customer. Loyalty programs and other offers that contain personalized offers are much more likely to be responded to and customers will feel more positively about a company that has gone the extra step.

Personalizing marketing offers is a fantastic way to reach customers. Rather than hitting everyone with a generalized message, personalized messages are directly applicable to the customer receiving them. Although this might take a bit more of an effort on the part of the company, the potential benefits of higher conversion rates and higher customer retention greatly outweigh any cost. Companies should definitely investigate how personalized benefits can help them be more successful in their marketing campaigns.