Your Website Content Can Affect Your Sales

Websites are no longer just visual representations of brands and companies. In fact, they play a pivotal role in any online marketing or SEO campaign. No truer is this then when it comes to effectively marketing products and services to core, niche and mass audiences. With this in mind, your website content has to be easy to scan and digest. It should also entail industry-relevant and high-quality content for visitors and potential customers. No matter the industry or sector you serve, your website can truly be a tool in generating leads, profits and recurring revenue.

Visibility is the Key to Success

According to industry experts, your website must have the following features in order to secure higher visibility across Google. These essential tools can also foster brand validity and growth, while driving business and sales across the board:

Uniformity and Consistency

Sites must have gripping templates and user features that are easy to access. This includes eye-catching logos, along with menus and designs that establish uniformity and consistency across your pages. The days of intricate Flash presentations and add-ons are simply over. Today’s websites are streamlined, centralized, and optimized for SEO and especially mobile and wireless access.

Captivating and Compelling Content

Your content must also be precise, concise, and to the point. This will keep visitors and customers on your pages longer – resulting in higher conversion rates and sales. Long gone are the days of lengthy content that would turn potential clients and customers away. Keep your content direct, industry- specific, and inclusive of strategic keywords and links that connect your customers to the products and services they seek.

Websites must also feature links to your social media pages. This can generate a lasting buzz about your brand, while appearing in local search results and Google Maps.

Understanding Optimal Frequency can Improve your Email Marketing

According to a TechnologyAdvice survey, 45.8% of subscribers consider business emails as spam when they perceive they are emailed too often. It was also the most cited reason as recommendations of how businesses could improve their email efforts at 43.9%. Ignoring the importance of the frequency of your email campaign can have a devastating loss on your business through loss of subscribers and consequently potential customers. Campaign Monitor determined that two weeks seems to be the optimal frequency to send email marketing materials without having a negative impact on a company’s subscriber base.

The ideal frequency for your company may differ from the norm. You have to know your subscriber base and their preferences. Here are some tips for optimizing the frequency of sending email marketing campaigns to your subscriber list.

1. Don’t Send Everything to Everyone

Know your audience. If you’re having a sale on men’s razors, you don’t need to send them to every person on your list. Tailor your marketing campaigns to the relevant people on your database.

2. When in Doubt, Just Ask

Include a page on your website that allows subscribers to select their preferred frequency of receiving marketing emails. Having a place where subscribers can let you know how they feel will save you the effort of having to guess.

3. Trial and Error

While two weeks is the optimal frequency found for the average email marketing campaign, this may or may not apply to your subscriber base. Vary your frequency in sending marketing campaigns and monitor the results until you find a frequency that works for your subscriber base.

There is plenty of data out there supporting various optimal email frequencies. When it comes down to it, the most effective frequency is the one that works for your subscriber base.

Millennials are Loving their Direct Mail

When most of the mail being delivered by the Post Office seems to be catalogues and direct mail coupon offers, it would seem that the tech-savvy Millennial generation would likely ignore those daily offerings, since they appear to enjoy their interaction with portable technology more than paper. If your company provides services targeted at that valuable twenty-something demographic, you might be thinking that adding a direct mail campaign to your advertising budget would be a waste of money. It isn’t, and here’s why:

Unique Eye-Catching Opportunity

Millenials spend their entire day ignoring the swarm of ads generated by social media and massive search engines. Unless they are actively shopping, those Google-ads are not so likely to receive the clicks needed to convert a sale. When a direct mail ad appears in their mailbox, it is a singular piece of advertising held in their hand, and not as likely to be swiped away. Take advantage of the stationary moment at the mail box, and put your product in front of young, hungry consumers.

Millenials Love to Save

This new generation has been imbued with a refreshing approach to life–they are less interested in buying objects and far more motivated in purchasing services. Unlikely to waste money, a coupon promoting technology, restaurants, and convenience services will be collected and encourage the hard-working individual to utilize the added bonus.

Shop Local Is Key

Like the direct mail appearing in their mail box, the local services advertised is another aspect of the economy the Millennial generation values over the anonymity of the global internet market. Introduce your business to your neighbor and see them walk through your door. Even online services provided by local individuals are more appealing than corporate giants.

Add a direct mail campaign to your advertising budget today.

How to Track Direct Marketing Efforts

When starting a marketing campaign for your business or company, the first thing you want to establish is a way to track the success of your campaigns. This will help you figure out what is working for your company and what’s not working. By establishing clear cut ways to track your marketing efforts, you can determine where your ideal audience is viewing your marketing efforts and if they are responding to it.

Traceable Codes

There are 2 main ways you can use traceable codes in your marketing campaign as a way to measure their success. If you are sending out mailers that indicate a special sale or promotion that you are having, use a specific code on the mailers that the users have to enter in order to access the discount. When the promotion or sale is over, you will be able to determine if customers found the sale via the mailers and unique code you used and how effective the mailers were. The other way traceable codes can be used is by adding them to your coupons that you offer. You may choose to offer coupons to your newsletter subscribers and a lesser coupon to all of your other potential costumers. With 2 unique coupon codes, you will be able to trace which coupons were the most effective.

Sales Campaigns with Unique URL

When sending out mailers or a newsletter to your customers, you can include a specific, special URL that the potential customer has to type in or click on in order to get to the offer or discount. This way, you will be able to track how many people accessed the discount via the specific URL.

Offer a Gift with Specific Purchase

A great way to track a marketing campaign is to offer a small, free gift with the purchase of an item. You can offer this free gift when the item is purchased with a specific code, through a specific URL, or during a short time frame. You will then be able to check how many customers redeemed the free gift offer.

Print’s Role in B2B Marketing

In your quest to expand your company, it’s important to put your best foot forward when marketing to other businesses to get them to buy from you or hire you. While having a good work ethic, competitive pricing, and superior product are all great strategies, you need to get your foot in the door first. In this digital age, print can have a big role in how you conduct your B2B marketing strategy, and in how successful it will be overall.

Location, Location, Location

Printed marketing materials are easy to distribute to a large room of business professionals. Simply make an appealing flyer, brochure, or other printed piece, then at any upcoming forum or conference you can hand out those pieces to prospective trade customers. Because everyone is there to share information and network anyways, print marketing can be seen as a much more positively received move than emailing the attendees at another time. As well, given the focus of the forum or conference those business professionals will be more likely to look at your work and read it thoroughly.

Feel

For many established business people, print materials still give a feeling that digital marketing lacks. The burst of color, the feel of the paper- it has a physical presence they identify with, and are more likely to look over your printed materials than a simple online message.

Comfort

The fact is many business professionals still read the newspaper and magazine. Communicating to them through the medium they have been familiar with their whole lives is a smart move, and will connect with them faster than a solely online focused marketing attempt.

Conclusion

Print isn’t close to being gone in B2B Marketing efforts. Use it wisely and you’ll see it still has much to offer

Building Keywords to Add to Your Content

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the practice of adding just the right mix of the proper keywords to get your website to rank high in search engine results. This allows potential visitors to find you easily, and increases traffic to your website. While some run away screaming at the mention of SEO, it is really not a complicated process. The following three tips will help you add keywords to the content on your website, so you can increase the number of new and returning visitors to your site.

* Determine Your Purpose

First, determine what you are trying to accomplish by bringing visitors to your website. What are people looking for that they will find on your site? The whole purpose behind keyword optimization is to put the right mix of keywords into the content on your website, so your site will be picked up in search engine results. If the search engines can’t find you, neither can people that are looking for what you have to offer. Once you determine your purpose, then you can choose keywords to pepper into your content to allow your site to be on the first page of search results.

* Research Keywords

Next, research keywords for your website. There are several websites out there that will help you choose the right keywords for your website. The keywords you choose should reflect what your site is about. Your site likely already ranks high for certain keywords; keyword analytics sites can help you determine this. You should also brainstorm to think of other keywords that may be untapped. This will help you increase your search rankings.

* Check Your Keyword Density

Once you have plugged in the chosen keywords, go back to your favorite analytics tool and analyze your keyword density. Remember that too few keywords will cause your website to fall in the search rankings, but having too many keywords can also hurt you. This is called “keyword stuffing,” and is harshly penalized by the major search engines.

How to Make Print Simple Yet Effective

Although online marketing seems to get most of the attention these days, print marketing can still be a successful way to find new customers. You don’t have to make your print marketing materials complex or elaborately designed in order to grab the eye of potential customers. There are plenty of simple ideas for print marketing that are highly effective.

 

Keep It Clean

A clean design with a few well-chosen colors, rather than a busy one with multiple tones, is the ideal way to catch the attention of consumers. Clean designs won’t overwhelm consumers, and they won’t hide your message. When it comes to white space, don’t shy away from it. Leaving a considerable amount of white space around your design helps draw consumers’ eyes to it.

 

Get Right to the Point

Whether you’re designing a brochure, flyer, poster or newspaper ad, don’t include too much information about your products or services. You only have a limited amount of space to make an impression on consumers, so make the most of it. Include the most important points you want consumers to know about your products or services. Putting too much information on your print marketing materials can end up causing consumers to turn away instead of reading through them.

 

Make It Easy to Read

The layout of your print marketing materials is just as important as the text you’re including. Make it easy for consumers to read them by including bold headlines and bullet points. These help break up what would otherwise be walls of text. You can also consider using infographics, depending on the types of print marketing materials you’re creating. These show consumers what they need to know in a format that’s easy to read.

 

Putting these simple tips into practice when designing your print materials can help improve your chances of gaining new customers. Remember that consumers value simple, easy-to-read designs and layouts that immediately let them know what you’re offering them.

What is Integrated Marketing and Why Should I Do It?

What Is Integrative Marketing?

Integrative marketing is a method that combines a detailed understanding of consumers with large scale data analysis to create content and communications that develops a consistent identity throughout all mediums and messages. It is a holistic method, utilizing the multitude of approaches, channels, and skill sets that are now necessary to be competitive in today’s digital age.

Why Is Integrative Marketing a Necessary Tool for Businesses?

Advances in technology, as well as the explosion of internet usage around the world, have led to a need for a major shift in marketing techniques. While in the past, consumers accessed information mainly through print, they now primarily access information through digital media. Furthermore, not only has internet usage become more widespread, there have also been dramatic changes to the way the digital information is accessed. Instead of utilizing primarily one device (i.e. the laptop or desktop), most individuals now use connected devices (i.e. appliances, cars, smartphones, and tablets). Moreover, social media has also become a necessary marketing tool as well.

To keep up with these changes, businesses must adapt their marketing strategies as well in order to create a consistent identity through all mediums and messages. Not only is integrated marketing necessary due to the plethora of media and purchasing options for consumers, integrated marketing also helps a business obtain – and maintain – a competitive advantage. Benefits of utilizing integrated marketing include: (1) an increased return on investment, (2) more efficient marketing, and (3) the prevention of duplicate messages.

When it comes to marketing, an understanding of the consumer is vital. With integrative marketing, businesses attract, engage, and retain consumers across a variety of digital, social media, and print platforms.

Millennials are Not Giving Up on Print

Millennials, or those people 30 and under, are tech savvy, with the ability to handle all the latest gadgetry and social media with ease. This has led to the idea that they are turning their backs on print media such as newspapers and books. When you see so many using social media, it’s easy to think this might be the case, but recent research is showing a very different picture. While they may be using paper or print less, they are far from pushing it all the way aside.

Newspapers

Many think newspapers are a dying breed because of the Internet, and the experts said the same when radio and television were invented at the time. An info graphic published by the <a href=”http://www.naa.org/millennials”>Newspaper Association of America</a> shows that 56 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 34 read newspapers, either online or in print, in any given week. People in this age group see their local newspaper as a reliable source of local information, and that affects them personally. They may not care whether it is in print or online, but they do appear to care about local information. The same study showed 10 percent of people in this age group are actual subscribers to the paper product, and an even higher number get a paper copy about once a week. About 70 percent react to ads in a paper newspaper as well.

Books

There is something about holding a book in one’s hand, and even millennials think this way. A<a href=”https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/why-digital-natives-prefer-reading-in-print-yes-you-read-that-right/2015/02/22/8596ca86-b871-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html”> Washington Post </a>story cited a study that showed a fourth of college students bought print textbooks even when they were given an electronic copy free. Overall, when given the option, the same study showed people in this age group relied on e-books only nine percent of the time.

Developing a Multi-Channel Marketing Strategy

Marketing means being creative, which you need to be because of the amount of competition. Your business has to not only meet the needs of your consumers now, but also try to anticipate what they may want tomorrow. The more avenues or channels you can take to branch out and reach more customers, the more likely you will become a success.

New Perspectives

The moment someone tells you to think outside the box, they’ve lost credibility. It’s an overused phrase that means nothing anymore. To really see something in a new way, you have to be willing to come up with practically unlimited ideas. Most of those ideas will in and of themselves go nowhere, but they may lead you to you winning strategy. Where are you customers? What are they doing? Are they on their phones? Are they mostly in the office? Do they watch television? Internet advertising, email lists, commercials, billboards and social media are all potential channels you can use to create an effective marketing campaign. The key here is to use the limited resources (time, advertising dollars) available to you so you can impress and retain your customers.

Working Smarter

Your customers probably have at least a few things in common, and that’s what you really need to focus on when it comes to marketing: what ties them together. If you work for a hardware store, and the common thread is the love of finishing a chore well. The campaign needs to focus on this from every angle. Maybe you run a photo contest on social media for ‘Best DIY Project’ while your newspaper ads show the pride on someone’s face because they didn’t have to call a so-called professional for help. Use different channels to promote the same message.